Mafia, alcoholics & illiterates: Macron’s view of the French mapped insult by insult

A map of France shared on social media has swapped the names of the regions with jibes that President Macron has directed at their citizens. And there are few areas left which he didn’t make a dig at.

Macron’s political opponents, Nadine Morano, who currently serves as Member of the European Parliament, and former French politician and the founder of the Christian Democratic Party, Christine Boutin, took to social media to ridicule the president on Tuesday. They posted a map with some of the “unpleasant vocabulary” Macron has used.

The edited map of France emerged on the heels of the leader’s gag about folk from Brittany, who he called “the French mafia,” as he introduced Pope Francis to Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

“He’s a Breton. Bretons are everywhere. Bretons are the French mafia,” Macron told the pontiff.

So Brittany is swapped on the map for “Mafia” and also has “illiterate women” written nearby. That’s in reference to Macron's remark describing employees of the Gad slaughterhouse, also in Brittany. He made that quip in 2014, when he held the office of the Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs.

‘Alcoholics’ is written in place of Hauts-de-France. This comes from Macron’s ill-fated quote about the spread of alcoholism, made when he visited the commune of Nœux-les-Mines as a presidential candidate last January.

READ MORE: Macron sparks outcry after telling workers protesting job cuts ‘to look for a job’

The Paris area is dubbed “people who are nothing.” Macron let that remark slip as he visited a hi-tech startup center, located near a train station, in the summer of 2017. Back then, he said train stations are places paths where people “who succeed” and “people who are nothing” cross.

“Slackers” adorns the center of the map. That’s the term used by the president to dismiss those who don’t agree with his reforms. The map was reposted by French-speaking social media users, who rushed to condemn Macron for his lack of respect for his own people.

“There is no more room on the map, so you can stop insulting the people,” one Twitter user wrote.

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