French President Emmanuel Macron’s latest diplomatic appearance in Damascus has once again turned into a spectacle of style, speculation and political theatre.
Arriving in the Syrian capital on Monday, Macron kept his aviator-style sunglasses firmly in place, even indoors, where the sun was clearly not the problem. The look immediately revived the online obsession that followed his earlier run of public appearances in the same dark glasses.
Officially, the explanation has been medical. People close to the French president previously said the sunglasses were being worn because of bleeding in a blood vessel in one eye.
For many online commentators, the return of the sunglasses brought back memories of a viral video from Macron’s trip to Vietnam last year, when his wife, Brigitte Macron, appeared to push him in the face as the couple stood at the doorway of the presidential plane. Macron later dismissed the incident as a light-hearted moment, saying he had merely been “joking” with his wife, while his office insisted the episode had been blown out of proportion.
The latest Damascus appearance has therefore given social media a fresh opening for what might be called “the Brigitte effect”: every unexplained Macron accessory now seems destined to be read through the lens of France’s most scrutinised presidential marriage.
Even Donald Trump previously joined the spectacle, joking about Macron’s “beautiful glasses” and calling him a “tough guy” after the French leader appeared in sunglasses during the Davos economic forum.
Macron’s visit to Damascus, however, carried serious diplomatic weight. He is the first Western leader to visit Syria since the fall of the Assad regime, marking a major symbolic moment in France’s renewed engagement with the country.
Still, as often happens with Macron, the optics threatened to overtake the diplomacy.
