Royal splendor in the heart of the Republic… By inviting Charles III to a state dinner in the sumptuous setting of the Palace of Versailles, President Emmanuel Macron risks reestablishing the image of an absolute monarch in a struggling France, six months after the pension crisis. The dinner will be given on Wednesday in the Hall of Mirrors, the most emblematic place of the castle, originally intended to celebrate the omnipotence of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and to dazzle its visitors.
“This image, in this context, is obviously fundamentally harmful for Emmanuel Macron even if there are diplomatic imperatives behind it which also play a role,” believes Benjamin Morel, lecturer in public law at the university. Paris-2 Panthéon-Assas, recalling that the period of September 20 is also associated with the birth of the Republic in 1792. “The date is not good, the image is not good, and it refers to a sequence quite particular, pension reform,” he says.
The deep distrust of the French
The visit of Charles III and Camilla, initially planned for the spring, was aborted due to the violent demonstrations linked to this crisis. And the prospect of royal and presidential couples strolling through bustling cities, from Paris to Bordeaux, and dining under the gold of Versailles had fizzled out. The pension crisis has since subsided and the President of the Republic has hit the gas to try to relaunch his second five-year term after a difficult start.
But the French’s distrust of him remains deep. In opinion surveys, “he can be judged competent, embodying the international aspect well, but he also appears proud, pedantic and disconnected,” notes Benjamin Morel. A feeling that the Versailles dinner can only reinforce, as during the yellow vest crisis in 2018 and the outbreak of social discontent around pensions. “Louis XVI, we beheaded him! Macron, we can start again! », then launched the Ile-de-France regional advisor related LFI Christophe Prudhomme.
The “regicidal impulse”
“We have undoubtedly never reached such a level of hatred towards the head of state, bringing back this age-old tropism, stemming from the French Revolution: the regicide impulse,” notes historian Jean Guarrigues. On the Elysée side, we brush aside in advance any trial of absolute monarchism, while remaining little said about the banquet on Wednesday, which should have 150 to 180 guests, far from the splendor of the past, and a musical interlude.
The choice of Versailles responds above all to a wish of Charles III, “sensitive to the idea of following in the footsteps of his mother”, and to a desire to “make France shine” through one of its most prestigious sites. , says the presidency. Elizabeth II was the most received foreign head of state at Versailles, in 1948 (then crown princess), in 1957 when a lunch was served in her honor in the same Hall of Mirrors, and 1972.
“The centuries-old France that receives”
“Since Queen Victoria, every time we have wanted to mark a privileged relationship with England, there has been a reception at the Palace of Versailles,” underlines historian Fabien Oppermann, author of “Versailles of Presidents”. Like General de Gaulle, Emmanuel Macron has made it a leading diplomatic calling card, welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin there in May 2017 and presiding over a European summit in March 2022.
“At Versailles, it is centuries-old France that receives,” argues Fabien Oppermann. “It’s really the history of France as we imagine it with the centralization of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, the French Revolution, Louis-Philippe, Napoleon.” “It is only the French who are offended by the use of the Palace of Versailles for this type of diplomatic events,” he continues, recalling that this palace served as a model for a number of European imperial residences, from Schönbrunn in Vienna to the Peterhof in Saint Petersburg.