Is it true that Emmanuel Macron tried to hide an €80,000 watch during an interview?

News spread on the Internet that during an interview about pension reform, the French President quietly took off a very expensive watch under the table. We decided to check the authenticity of such messages.

Many major Russian media wrote about this: “Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Moscow 24", "Vesti.ru", "Arguments and facts", "Sight"etc. Some of them claim: the French were outraged that Macron tried to hide a “luxury item” in this way (for example, the TV channel “NTV", Lenta.ru, "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Gazeta.ru", etc.). Posts about Macron’s “unnoticed” watch appearing on major Telegram channels such as “Pool N3"(290,000 views at the time of writing the analysis), "Evil proof" (111,000) and "Old Square"(72,000). TV presenters wrote about this Vladimir Solovyov (244,000 views) and Ruslan Ostashko (101,000), publicist Dmitry Vasilets (192,000), political commentator Yakov Kedmi (99,000), etc. Tweets about Macron's watch are recruiting hundreds of retweets and likes on Twitter, are discussing news social media users Facebook And "VKontakte"

The incident occurred on March 22, 2023 during interview Emmanuel Macron about pension reform to journalists from TF1 and France 2 TV channels. The recording of the broadcast was posted on Macron’s official YouTube channel. During his speech, the French president actively gesticulates, and the clock appears in the frame many times. Then he puts his hands under the table, and when he takes them out, the watch on his wrist is no longer there (at 10:10 in the video).

One of the first to draw attention to the French president’s gesture was a member of the Macron-opposition party “Unconquered France.” Clémence Guette. Her tweet with the excised fragment of the interview received more than 5 million views. Gette accompanied the video with the comment: “Talking about”smicardah"(people who receive the minimum wage. - Note "Verified"), who "never had such a large purchasing power", he carefully puts his beautiful luxury watches under the table." Many media outlets, including Russian ones, later posted her tweet and also repeated the assertion that at the moment when Macron took off his watch, he was talking about smicards and therefore decided to hide the "luxury" watch. However, in fact, at this time he was talking about various forms of protest against pension reform, including strikes. And this is easy to check from that very video on YouTube, if you turn on the translation of subtitles into Russian.

Moreover, the entire interview is dedicated to the extremely unpopular pension reform, promoted by Emmanuel Macron. Because of it, the retirement age in France will rise from 62 to 64 years. The initiative sparked millions of protests across the country; this is a very sensitive topic for French domestic politics and Macron personally, who believes that without this measure the French pension system will not be able to continue to exist.

“Verified” was unable to establish the original source of information that Macron’s watch costs €80,000. But some users assumedwhat is this model Chronomètre Bleu luxury brand F. P. Journe. The price is not indicated on the manufacturer's website, but on some sites this accessory is actually for sale at a price close to €80,000. However, representatives of the Elysee Palace have already contacted the French newspaper L'Indépendant and denied this information. They claim that the French President wears a Bell & Ross watch BR V1-92, decorated with the coat of arms of the republic. Indeed, upon closer inspection, the watch Macron photographed during the interview looks more like Bell & Ross than F. P. Journe (the latter has a recognizable hand design that would be noticeable even in a low-quality video).

The blue model, like Macron’s, without the coat of arms costs €2,400 on the manufacturer’s website. Bell & Ross has been around for many years equips elite units of the French army, including the presidential security service, used their watches. Therefore, there is a possibility that Macron received the watch for free as part of a partnership with the brand. But even if this is not the case, it is unlikely that a €2,400 watch would be considered so expensive that he would have to hide it. According to Bloomberg, in 2021 Macron's official salary as president was €196,000 per year, so he could easily afford to buy a watch for €2,400.

Additionally, the same clock can be seen on Macron in instagram its official photographer is Soazig de la Moissoniere. Most likely, if a politician did not want to advertise this accessory, he would not allow such pictures to be posted. And I certainly wouldn’t wear a watch to public events.

So why, then, did Emmanuel Macron take off his watch during a live broadcast? Elysee Palace stated: the reason was that literally a few seconds before the moment that spread across the Internet, the president hit them hard on the table - and this sound is really clearly audible on records. Probably, so that this would not happen again (and this was possible, since the politician was very actively gesticulating throughout the entire video) and there would be no sound defects in the interview, he took off his watch.

Thus, there is no reason to think that Macron was trying to hide his watch. Firstly, the cost of the watch actually turned out to be 30 times lower than what many media outlets and social network users wrote. Secondly, the French President has been wearing them for a long time, they are visible in many photographs of his official photographer, including from public events, where it would be more difficult to hide them than during an interview. Thirdly, at the time of the incident he did not touch upon any topic that would in any special way be conducive to hiding this accessory, even if it were really very expensive.

Cover photo: screenshot Interview au 13h de TF1 et France 2

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

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