Obsessed with his image, Emmanuel Macron wears more perfume than reasonable to leave a mark on those who cross his path... as reported by journalist Olivier Beaumont from Le Parisien in The Tragedy of the Élysée, a book that portrays the twilight of the French president and delves into his quirks and personal details.
It seems that Macron uses "industrial quantities" of his favorite cologne, Dior Eau Sauvage, with the explicit intention of "marking his territory" (according to a former advisor) and to ensure that "the president is in the building."
"Just like Louis XIV used his perfumes as a symbol of power when strolling through the galleries of Versailles, Emmanuel Macron uses it as an element of his authority in the Élysée," as stated in the book.
Dior's cologne, refined and powerful, with fresh and airy notes of hedione and lavender adding a floral touch with a woody facet, not only serves as a "herald" of the president among his entourage but can have an overwhelming effect on visitors.
According to the book, Brigitte herself occasionally sprays herself with the same irresistible perfume to feel her husband's presence. Dior Eau Sauvage is, by the way, associated with France's richest man, Bernard Arnault, and owner of LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods empire.
Olivier Beaumont shares another somewhat eccentric curiosity of Macron, which is his peculiar collection of sunglasses ("each one uglier than the other") that the president occasionally offers to his visitors when it's time for a stroll in the Élysée gardens.
"Once you borrow one of those sunglasses, you never forget to bring your own again," assures a former minister, convinced that it is another one of his "power games" to assert his dominance over his guests.
The Tragedy of the Élysée, released last week, aims to be both "a portrait of a place of power, its rituals, and artifacts" as well as a portrayal of its 47-year-old tenant, isolated in the final stretch of his term and obsessed with his own image and legacy.
Based on nearly 70 testimonies, Olivier Beaumont attempts a human approach to the calculating president and "infallible optimist," worn down by the perpetual political crisis prevailing in France, exacerbated last week by the five-year disqualification ruling against Marine Le Pen (who was acclaimed as "president" by hundreds of followers at the foot of Les Invalides, where Napoleon is buried).
"The French don't see how much I've done for them, they no longer want me," Macron himself admitted to a friend at his Élysée "château," the setting for the "tragicomedy" of power, with its 365 rooms in the heart of Paris reflecting the image that the youngest president of the Fifth Republic sees, resigned to pass the baton in 2027.
"How many crises, dramas, and dirty tricks have been staged there since his arrival?" Beaumont wonders. His court diminishes (his chief of staff Alexis Kohler being the latest to leave), rivalries intensify, and tensions in the center stage he fought so hard to conquer escalate in the absence of a successor who can challenge Le Pen or her "heir" Jordan Bardella.
But if anything has defined Macron since his arrival at the Élysée in 2017, it has been precisely his ability to defy adversity, reinventing himself as the "commander-in-chief" of fragile Europe, recognizable from afar by that perfume that, like Cyrano's nose, precedes him by half an hour wherever he goes.
Eau Sauvage was Alain Delon's favorite cologne, once endorsed by Zinedine Zidane, enveloped for decades in a masculinity mystique starting from the bottle, inspired by a whiskey flask.
"Olfactively, that cologne sends a pretty strong signal," acknowledges former Élysée spokesperson Bruno Roger-Petit in the book. "Just being in the honor lobby is enough to know if he [Macron] has recently passed by or not."
Macron usually keeps the Eau Sauvage bottle with a sprayer (starting at 69 euros for 50 milliliters) within reach, even in his office, ready to spray himself at any time of the day. "Smells like the president" is already a saying among his collaborators to announce his arrival. The cologne has been Macron's best-kept secret to appear in public with "an impeccable appearance" in the hottest countries: from Iraq to Ivory Coast, passing through Martinique. "In Marseille, under the blazing sun and almost 50 degrees, we wondered how he could not feel the sweat and still smell like his perfume," acknowledges former minister Sabrina Agresti-Roubache.