US media claimed last month that a file titled “info re: French President” was among the papers taken by the FBI during their search of Donald Trump’s Florida resort on August 8. The article also alleged that the former president of the United States was infatuated with and boasted about his intimate knowledge of the French leader’s love life.
French President Emmanuel Macron has responded on CNN to the Rolling Stone allegation from last month, claiming that a file bearing his name was among the papers taken from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Macron told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he had “read some newspaper about that”, adding that if Jake had information, he would be “delighted to share them.”
Macron said he was not a part of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and also not a part of Trump’s lawyers. He said he would be delighted to have more information, but it’s “not on his side.”
Tapper did not inquire more of the French president.
The Macron File
Last month, Rolling Stone stated that a dossier on Macron was discovered among the records that Trump allegedly hid in his Florida home after leaving the White House. Citing sources on Trump’s boastful behaviour, the magazine said that the file may have included material collected through “intelligence” on Macron’s “naughty” personal life.
According to two people, Trump has had a “tawdry” fixation with Macron for a long time and has bragged before and after his presidency that he knows illicit information about the love life of the French president.
According to the article, the revelation of its existence triggered a trans-Atlantic panic. Trump’s prior private statements on Macron’s allegedly “naughty” behaviour, which “not very many people know,” allegedly heightened the fears.
According to reports, French and American officials collaborated to establish what information Trump had on Macron and the French administration and if any of it was crucial. Both nations’ officials were interested in whether this revelation constituted a breach of national security.
However, Trump’s ruminations on Macron’s alleged transgressions were allegedly vague and nonspecific. According to the publication’s sources, it is often difficult to tell how much of what Trump says is based on reality. One of the sources told Rolling Stone that it is difficult to determine if he is telling the truth or not.
Trump apparently did not explain how American intelligence received the supposed Macron materials he claimed to have seen during conversations with his aides.
Trump has denied on many occasions that any materials recovered from his Mar-a-Lago resort were classified and criticised the FBI for their “illegal and unconstitutional” “break-in, search, and seizure” operation. The Department of Justice is examining the documents to see if Trump’s removal from the White House files was unlawful. The former president slammed the investigation as just another effort by Joe Biden and “sleazy” Democrats to prevent him from running for politics.
Trump and Macron enjoyed an on-again, off-again bromance during the former US president’s time in the White House, with media images of them holding hands and smiling alternating with claims that Trump referred to the French leader as a “wuss” and comments by Macron suggesting that NATO was “brain dead” due to the then-perceived waning US commitment to the alliance.
Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary and Melania Trump’s former chief of staff, writes in her book ‘I’ll Take Your Questions Now’ that Trump used to refer to French President Emmanuel Macron as a “wuss” and openly admitted to not enjoying the company of other European leaders, with the exception of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The death of the symbolic friendship tree planted by Trump and Macron at the White House marked the end of their relationship. Macron vowed to give his American colleague a new tree in 2019, but it is unknown if he followed through.
Gay Macron controversy
In February 2017, at the Bobino theatre in Paris, Macron addressed the unpleasant rumour which has been running for almost two years in Paris about his supposed homosexuality and, more precisely, his relationship with Matthieu Gallet, CEO of Radio France.
Rumours about Macron’s alleged homosexuality were subject to many homophobic jokes, and some jokingly called him “Madame Macron.”
During the event, he joked, saying it’s unpleasant for Brigitte (Macron’s wife), “who wonders how I’m doing physically.” He said she shared his life from morning to night, and “I never paid her for it!”. He added that he could not double himself. “If in the dinners in town you are told that I have a double life with Matthieu Gallet, it is my hologram that escaped me; it cannot be me!” he had said.