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Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron plan to build swimming pool at presidential retreat using French taxpayers' money

French President Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte want a pool where they can avoid photographers: AFP/Getty Images
French President Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte want a pool where they can avoid photographers: AFP/Getty Images

Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are to bill French taxpayers for a swimming pool to be built a few feet from the president’s private beach in an attempt to scupper paparazzi taking pictures of them swimming.

The Elysée Palace confirmed the bill for the work at their official Riviera retreat where the president and his wife will spend the summer break.

Mr Macron is currently fighting accusations that he has become “the president of the rich”.

The pool will be installed in the gardens of Fort Brégançon, which is situated on a rocky island, attached to the Mediterranean coast by a causeway close to Toulon.

In 1968 Charles de Gaulle turned the fort into his official summer residence. Subsequent leaders have complained about people gawping and paparazzi taking pictures while they sunbathe or swim off the estate’s private beach.

Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte pictured in Sicily in 2017 (AFP/Getty Images)
Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte pictured in Sicily in 2017 (AFP/Getty Images)

Mr Macron, 40, and his wife, 65, spent three days there in May, when they decided to install the pool.

“It will probably be above ground,” said an Élysée Palace spokesman, adding, though, that digging into the Brégançon rock would be extremely difficult. The spokesman said the work would be “fast and certainly in time for this year’s holiday. We don’t know the cost at this stage, but it must be reasonable.”

At present “anyone can use a boat to aim a telephoto lens at the president”, the spokesman added. “He therefore ordered a study to test the feasibility of a swimming pool.” With building work and maintenance, free standing swimming pools cost upwards of £10,000, and in many cases closer to £100,000.

Socialist president François Hollande, Mr Macron’s predecessor and former boss, was pictured in his shorts on the Brégançon beach with his then girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler in 2012.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the former conservative president, and his wife, the model and singer Carla Bruni, were also regularly snapped on the beach. The Sarkozys were often criticised for their high-living, with Ms Bruni in particular likened to Marie Antoinette.

The Macrons are, however, the first presidential couple to take action by ordering a pool for a property so close to a beach in time for their August holiday.

“President of the Rich” headlines are now regularly published by French media outlets.

Mr Macron has slashed taxes for the better off, and made it far easier for bosses to hire and fire workers — leading hundreds of thousands of protesters to take to the street.

This week his top-down style of governance was highlighted — and came in for some criticism — when he scolded a teenage boy for calling him by his nickname, Manu.