Overview
- A video shows Brigitte Macron telling comedian Ary Abittan, backstage at Paris’s Folies Bergères, that if there are “brutte stronze” they will be thrown out.
- #NousToutes activists had interrupted Abittan’s performance the night before wearing his masks labeled “violentatore,” then shared the backstage clip and promoted the hashtag #SalesConnes.
- The presidential entourage said her words targeted the activists’ radical methods and stressed that she does not endorse such tactics.
- France Insoumise figures used the episode to attack the Macron couple and renew calls for Emmanuel Macron to resign, as former president François Hollande criticized the remark as vulgar.
- Commentators including Pascal Praud defended the private exchange and noted that Abittan’s rape case was closed with an acquittal upheld on appeal, with no change to his legal status.