PARIS: A video surfaced Tuesday of French President Emmanuel Macron singing a traditional song in the street after a televised address in which he sought to soothe tensions over his unpopular pension reforms.
Many Internet users suspected the footage was faked using AI or other means when it first emerged, but people close to Macron told AFP it was genuine.
“The president took a moment with his wife (Brigitte Macron) after his speech (on Monday evening). They encountered a group of young people who were singing... so he joined them in a song from the Pyrenees which he knows and loves,” they said.
In the night-time video, Macron can be seen reading from his phone the words of “Le Refuge,” a song about a lodge in the mountain range on France’s southwestern border with Spain, surrounded by men in their 20s and 30s singing vigorously.
The incident might at first have seemed a welcome show of connection with voters for the president, whose reforms including an increase to the pension age have earned him widespread animosity in recent weeks.
But the video was first published on the Facebook page of an organization called “Projet Canto.”
While the group describes itself as preserving traditional songs in digital form, left-wing newspaper Liberation reported last year that it was founded and run by far-right activists and offered recordings of songs with ties to Nazi Germany in its app.
Macron “could not have known in the moment the backgrounds of every person he was speaking to,” the person in his entourage said.
The group told Liberation last year that “political songs are part of the history of song, that’s why we’ve stored them,” saying it also had “far-left” songs in its catalogue.
Macron previously sang “Le Refuge” during a trip to the Upper Pyrenees in 2022.
Macron seen singing in the streets after pensions address
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Macron seen singing in the streets after pensions address
- Many internet users suspected the footage was faked using AI or other means when it first emerged
- In the night-time video, Macron can be seen reading from his phone the words of "Le Refuge"
Cuba says a 5th person died after people on a Florida-flagged speedboat opened fire on soldiers
- Authorities in Cuba said that on Feb. 26 Cuban soldiers confronted a speedboat carrying 10 people as the vessel approached the island and opened fire on the troops
- The shooting threatened to increase tensions between US President Donald Trump and Cuban authorities
HAVANA: Cuba said a fifth person has died as a consequence of a fatal shootout last month involving a Florida-flagged speedboat that allegedly opened fire on soldiers in waters off the island nation’s north coast.
The island’s interior ministry said late Thursday in a statement that Roberto Álvarez Ávila died on March 4 as a result of his injuries. It added that the remaining injured detainees “continue to receive specialized medical care according to their health status.”
Authorities in Cuba said that on Feb. 26 Cuban soldiers confronted a speedboat carrying 10 people as the vessel approached the island and opened fire on the troops. They said the passengers were armed Cubans living in the US who were trying to infiltrate the island and “unleash terrorism”. Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others.
“The statements made by the detainees themselves, together with a series of investigative procedures, reinforce the evidence against them,” the Cuban interior ministry said in its statement, adding that “new elements are being obtained that establish the involvement of other individuals based in the US”
Earlier this week, Cuba said it had filed terrorism charges against six suspects that were on the speedboat. The government unveiled items said to have been found on the boat, including a dozen high-powered weapons, more than 12,800 pieces of ammunition and 11 pistols.
Cuban authorities have provided few details about the shooting, but said the boat was roughly 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) northeast of Cayo Falcones, off the country’s north coast. They also provided the boat’s registration number, but The Associated Press was unable to readily verify the details because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.
The shooting threatened to increase tensions between US President Donald Trump and Cuban authorities. The island’s economy was until recently largely kept economically afloat by Venezuela’s oil, which is now in doubt after a US military operation deposed then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
