King
Charles’ €500K lobster dinner blows hole in French presidency’s budget
A state
dinner with the U.K.’s king cost the French nearly €500,000.
Emmanuel
Macron hosted King Charles in September last year at Versailles, the historical
home of the French monarchy. |
July 30,
2024 12:45 pm CET
By Judith
Chetrit, Océane Herrero, Jason Wiels and Victor Goury-Laffont
PARIS — A
decadent dinner costing nearly €475,000 for the U.K.’s King Charles III helped
push France’s Élysée Palace — the office of President Emmanuel Macron —to a
record high deficit last year.
France’s
love for grand gestures and opulent dining are fully in evidence in the pages
of a damning yearly audit of the Élysée’s budget, released on Monday by the
Cour des Comptes, France’s top audit court.
The Élysée’s
spending, which includes costs related to the president’s diplomatic and
presidential duties as well as administration, personnel, security and estate
management, reached a whopping €125 million, plunging the books €8.3 million
into the red.
Among the
biggest deficit drivers were two luxurious state dinners, with Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and King Charles III.
Macron
hosted the British head of state in September last year at Versailles,
historical home of the French monarchy, for a star-studded feast with at least
160 invitees including Rolling Stones’ singer Mick Jagger and British actor
Hugh Grant.
The dinner,
during which guests enjoyed blue lobster and rose macaroons cost the French
presidency close to €475,000 — including over €165,000 on catering and over
€40,000 on wine (including a bottle of 2004 Château Mouton Rothschild) and
other drinks.
Third-party
caterers and decorators led costs to surge for receptions held outside the
Elysée, as was the case with Charles III and Modi, who was welcomed at the
Louvre and was shown some of France’s most-visited museum’s masterpieces by
Macron himself. Total cost: upwards of €400,000.
France’s
audit court nonetheless acknowledged some cost-saving efforts, underlining the
Élysée’s thriftiness when hosting “cocktails for less than 100 people,” events
during which the Palace’s in-house kitchen staff is usually preferred over
external contractors.
The Cour des
Comptes also slammed the French presidency’s poor travel-planning skills,
pointing to a loss of over €830,000 generated by the cancellation of 12
apparently non-refundable trips. A planned but subsequently cancelled trip to
Germany in July 2023 alone led to a loss of nearly €500,000, mostly due to
transport and accommodation costs.
Responding
to the sums involved after the publication of the report, the Élysée said:
“France maintains close diplomatic relations with a large number of countries,
which organize equivalent events when they receive the Head of State.”
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