Macron Consoling Mbappe

About

Macron Consoling Mbappé refers to video and pictures of French President Emmanuel Macron and French national team star Kylian Mbappé following France's loss in the 2022 World Cup. Mbappé appeared indifferent or even annoyed by Macron's touching him and talking to him as he sat with his emotions after a particularly eventful and tense final.

Origin

The France/Argentina World Cup final saw Argentina take a 2-0 lead early on. However, around the 80th minute, Mbappé scored two goals 97 seconds apart. He scored another in overtime, leading France and Argentina, tied at 3-3, to decide the game through a penalty kick shootout, which France lost. Mbappé later won the Golden Boot award for most goals scored in the World Cup.^[1]

Emmanuel Macron visited the World Cup in order to support the French national team, although many critics speculated that he was actually going in order to take advantage of the team politically.^[2] Following the French team's loss, Macron went down to the pitch to console a forlorn Mbappé, who very visibly seemed to not enjoy being touched. A reposted clip of the incident, uploaded to Twitter^[5]@THORmaximalist on December 19, 2022 can be seen below.

Later, when Mbappé received a medal, Macron attempted to place it on Mbappé's neck, but the player reached out to do it himself. A reposted video of the incident, uploaded on December 18th to Twitter^[6] by @Emaa19981, received over three hundred likes in three days.

Spread

Video clips for the live broadcast of the World Cup final showed Mbappé and other members of the French team grieving their loss. Viewers shared footage and stills on social media platforms as soon as they aired.

The reception of Macron's gesture was mostly negative. Twitter^[3] user @Cemil (seen below) described it as "57 seconds of cringe," receiving almost 37,000 likes in a day.

Later, Twitter^[4] user @joonlee posted about what the American equivalent to the Macron-Mbappé embrace would be, receiving over 261,000 likes in the same day.

Various Examples

External References