Achi news desk-
Last Updated: March 28, 2024, 12:59 IST
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (L) and French President Emmanuel Macron hold hands as they hold a bilateral meeting while sailing in Guajara Bay off Belem, Para state, Brazil, on March 26, 2024. (AFP)
French President Macron’s “bromance” with Brazil’s Lula is fueling a social media frenzy. Warm hugs and witty comments during a diplomatic visit
Wedding photos or a diplomatic visit? The apparent “bromance” between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has set social media fans on fire.
During his three-day visit to Brazil, Macron, 46, was seen smiling and warmly hugging Lula, 78, during a trip to the Amazonian rainforest. Since then many of the images have circulated wildly among social media users in Brazil alongside witty montages and comments.
One photo showing the leaders raising their arms under a large tree has been edited to show them holding red heart-shaped balloons. Another portrays the pair hand in hand, smiling as they gaze out at the horizon while floating in a boat along the Amazon River.
“They’re going to get married in the Amazon and have their honeymoon in Paris,” joked one user on X, while others said photos from the trip could form a wedding album.
Macron’s warm relationship with Lula marks a departure from the frosty relations between the French leader and Brazil’s right-wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, who led the country between 2019 and 2022.
His trip, which ends on Thursday in Brasilia when he meets Lula at the presidential palace, saw the two leaders announce a billion dollar green investment plan for the Amazon.
France, the seventh-largest economy in the world, and Brazil, the ninth-largest, are seen as key players in a geopolitical scene marked by competition between China and the United States.
Paris sees Brasilia as a bridge to major emerging economies that Brazil seeks to expand through its presidency of the G20, and membership of the BRICS+ group.
