Macron Jokes About ‘Wedding’ Photos With Lula: ‘France Loves Brazil, Brazil Loves France’

On Thursday, social media users made jokes comparing French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Lula to images from a wedding book.

Throughout Macron’s three-day tour to Brazil, pictures of the two grinning and giving each other warm embraces went viral online this week, accompanied by humorous comments and montages that alluded to their romantic connection.

Macron posted on X on Thursday, saying, “Some have compared the pictures of my visit to Brazil to those of a wedding.” It was one, I tell them. He said, “Brazil loves France and France loves Brazil.”

Macron shared an image of himself and Lula grinning during the visit, which was superimposed on a poster for the romance 2016 movie “La La Land,” to go along with his message. Lula used emojis of the flags of Brazil and France along with two little love hearts as her response to Macron’s post, which was also shared in Portuguese.

This week, a photo that was circulated on social media of the leaders lifting their arms under a big tree in a Brazilian rainforest was altered to reveal that they were clutching red balloons shaped like hearts.

Some on X joked that “they are going to marry in the Amazon and have their honeymoon in Paris,” while others suggested that the photos taken throughout the trip may be used to create a wedding album.

The two presidents unveiled a billion-dollar green investment plan for the Amazon during Macron’s visit to Brazil. The two nations’ alliance, according to Lula, has built “a bridge between the global South and the developed world.”

Macron’s cordial relationship with Lula contrasts with the chilly one between the French president and Jair Bolsonaro, the former right-wing president of Brazil who served as head of state from 2019 to 2022.