France’s Macron embraces Brazil’s Lula — and the memes poking fun at their ‘wedding’

By DAVID BILLER
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — If social media is to be believed, French President Emmanuel Macron’s just-ended trip to Brazil left him swooning. Pictures showed him and Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva traipsing through the Amazon and posing beneath the soaring canopy in white button-down shirts. Then there they were again, standing close and clasping hands on a boat as Macron looked adoringly at Lula. Brazilian social media gobbled up the bonhomie with gusto, and users posted photos of the duo that many said looked more like a wedding album than a state visit. On the last evening of his visit, Macron joined in. In a posting on X, Macron said: “Some people compared the images of my visit to Brazil with those of a wedding, and I say to them: It was a wedding!”