I love magic tricks and sleight of hand. Like, I think it’s so cool when people can do those kinds of tricks, make a coin disappear, make a wristwatch reappear, pick my card out of a deck. Well, did you know that French President Emmanuel Macron is also a magician? He practices a deft sleight of hand even when he’s on camera, being interviewed. Late last week, he was speaking at a French debate on pensions and he made his wristwatch disappear:

Emmanuel Macron while asking for sacrifices from the French people suddenly realizes he is wearing a
€80.000 watch.

And voila, just like a real magician it disappears under the table….
😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/w8HZuQuM7S

— Joost Broekers (@JoostBroekers) March 24, 2023

First of all, I would have had to look down to take off a watch – I wouldn’t have been able to do it blind, under a table, but maybe men’s watches are different for men’s (arguably?) clumsy fingers. Second of all, there’s a debate about the model and price of the watch – while many tweets claimed that Macron wore a watch worth something like 80,000 Euros, it’s much more likely that he was wearing a recent favorite, a £2,100 BRV 1-92 model by Bell & Ross. While a $2500 watch is out of range of most men, for a man in his position (president of France), that’s actually not really some big-ticket item. I remember when French peeps took issue with Sarkozy wearing a pricey Rolex during his term in office – this piece is at least French and a more affordable option for some men.

Also: there’s some debate about why Macron removed his watch mid-debate. Was he removing a luxury item while talking about pension reform specifically so he wouldn’t look like a raging hypocrite? Or did he remove his watch because he was gesticulating so much, he kept inadvertently banging his watch on the table?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.