# Troubled Macron

Troubled Macron, also known as Sad Macron, is a set of three photos of French President Emmanuel Macron looking exhausted in the Élysée Palace that went viral in March 2022 under the false claim they were taken right after a phone call with Vladimir Putin about Ukraine. Twitter accounts spread the images as a brooding triptych despite the photos predating the alleged Putin call by weeks. By March 8, 2022, remix creators were combining the shots with Kermit the Frog and Quentin Tarantino templates on Twitter[3].

## Origin
The three images came from the camera of Soazig de La Moissonniere, Macron's official Élysée Palace photographer, who shot them during separate working sessions in early 2022[5]. She posted the first photo, showing Macron standing with his head bowed over the back of his chair, to Instagram on February 9, 2022[2]. A second shot of him reclining with his arms spread wide followed on February 18[11], and the final image of Macron burying his face in his hands appeared on March 4, 2022[4].

Each photo earned a few thousand likes on the photographer's account before Reddit and Twitter users began recycling them. None of the originals carried any reference to Russia, Ukraine, or Vladimir Putin; that framing was added later by viral posters who misdated the images[5].

- **Platform:** Instagram (source photos) / Reddit and Twitter (viral spread)
- **Creator:** Unknown
- **Date:** 2022

## Overview
Each photo captures Macron in a different posture of apparent fatigue inside the Élysée Palace: standing with his head bowed over the back of his chair, leaning back with his arms spread wide, and finally hunched forward with both hands pressing his temples[2][4]. Meme creators use the three images as a sequence of escalating despair, often captioning them with fake Putin dialogue or any slow-building disaster that ends with the viewer gripping their skull[1]. The dim lighting and heavy office furniture give the shots a cinematic weight that most political photos lack, which is part of why Twitter users compared them to brooding templates like Kermit The Frog and the Quentin Tarantino Walking Around meme[9][5].

Captions range from the obvious, like Macron reading horrifying war news, to the absurd, like Macron realizing he left the stove on. A parallel joke format put the exhausted Macron photos next to a cheerful shot of Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, contrasting an anxious French diplomat with a seemingly unbothered Ukrainian official[10].

## How to Use
Treat the three photos as a sequence showing someone realizing bad news, processing it, and then collapsing into visible dread. Common conventions include captioning each panel with escalating stages of a single disaster (hearing a notification, reading the news, understanding the implications) or dropping a single panel as a standalone reaction to a tweet. Comparison memes often set the Macron photos against a calm or smiling figure like Vitaliy Kim to signal a mismatch in anxiety levels[10].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Troubled Macron?
Troubled Macron, also known as Sad Macron, is a set of three Élysée Palace photos of French President Emmanuel Macron looking anxious that spread in March 2022 under the false claim they were taken after a phone call with Vladimir Putin[1].

### Where did Troubled Macron come from?
The photos were taken by Macron's official photographer Soazig de La Moissonniere on February 9, February 18, and March 4, 2022, and posted to her Instagram account before Reddit and Twitter users turned them into memes[2][4].

### What does Troubled Macron mean?
The images read as a sequence of mounting dread, and users caption them to depict anyone receiving terrible news or processing a disaster, often in exaggerated or absurd scenarios[7].

### How do you use Troubled Macron?
People caption the panels individually or as a triptych showing escalating despair, and some posts compare the images to the Quentin Tarantino Walking Around meme or set them against a cheerful photo of Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim for contrast[9][10].

### Is Troubled Macron still popular?
The format peaked in March 2022 during coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war and has mostly stayed tied to that moment, with references popping up when Macron appears in Russia-related news stories[5].

## References
1. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t8zfe3/%C3%A9lys%C3%A9e_palace_released_an_image_of_macron_after/](<https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t8zfe3/%C3%A9lys%C3%A9e_palace_released_an_image_of_macron_after/>)
2. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CZznyqhg4sS/](<https://www.instagram.com/p/CZznyqhg4sS/>)
3. [https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1501203496716152841](<https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1501203496716152841>)
4. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CauJ_GCLjq6/](<https://www.instagram.com/p/CauJ_GCLjq6/>)
5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/troubled-macron-sad-macron](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/troubled-macron-sad-macron>)
6. [https://twitter.com/ElHuffPost/status/1500741812310482949](<https://twitter.com/ElHuffPost/status/1500741812310482949>)
7. [https://twitter.com/Klarden/status/1500801768162217984](<https://twitter.com/Klarden/status/1500801768162217984>)
8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t8zfe3/comment/hzr4ljm/](<https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t8zfe3/comment/hzr4ljm/>)
9. [https://twitter.com/BetaKong05/status/1500846926664663044](<https://twitter.com/BetaKong05/status/1500846926664663044>)
10. [https://twitter.com/superocheck/status/1500886249443368964](<https://twitter.com/superocheck/status/1500886249443368964>)
11. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CaK239fL4ET/](<https://www.instagram.com/p/CaK239fL4ET/>)
12. [https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1501265482887970820](<https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1501265482887970820>)

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Source: https://meme.com/memes/troubled-macron-sad-macron
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