Emmanuel Macron is trending on social media after appearing in a TikTok Q&A session wearing a hip black T-shirt with a mysterious abstract logo containing triangles and circles.
The session, which took place Monday and was aimed at persuading reluctant young people to get vaccinated against the coronavirus amid the massive anti-Covid passport protests which have overwhelmed many French cities in recent weeks, gained traction for all the wrong reasons online, with a majority of users discussing Macron’s attire, rather than his message.
Some fashionistas apparently only wanted to know what brand of t-shirt Macron was wearing, presumably so that they could get one for themselves.
Tweet reads: "Let's talk about the background: What is the brand of Emmanuel Macron's t-shirt?"
Others, including Le Monde Moderne reporter Alexis Poulin, quipped that the mystery logo may be the logo of his, the president’s, “new party” (Macron had founded the liberal centrist La Republique En Marche! party from scratch in 2016 following his work as an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque and a brief career as a minister).
Macron’s young female fans swooned over the president’s choice of attire, saying the t-shirt made him look “handsome” and “stylish”.
The mystery deepened as French media scoured the internet to figure out if the logo was a registered trademark or design. According to Oust-France.fr, the logo could not be found in French or international brand databases, and no similar brand has been registered to date. Furthermore, a cursory reverse image search using Google, Yandex, and Invid similarly yielded no results.
Whatever its origins, and whether it is an established brand or not, Macron’s shirt has already sprung up on popular online clothing retailer lalingeshop.com, with the “Macron tiktok T-shirt” selling for 20 euros and available in black or white.
"Macron tiktok T-shirt" on sale on a French online clothing shop.
© Photo : Screengrab / laligneshop.com
Elysee Palace has not commented to media about the t-shirt, its origins or brand, leading speculation to run wild. Some users took the logo in a dark, conspiracy theory direction, suggesting the enigmatic, geometric shapes formed an owl symbol, possibly serving as a message for Free Masons, or worse, Satanists.
In French culture, a hibou, or owl with feathered ear tufts, is said to be a sign of bad luck, and for the Romans, a messenger of death, black magic and melancholy. A chouette, or owl without tufts, on the other hand, is a positive sign, and is said to represent the servant of the Greek goddess Athena, and also means “super” in French.
The darkest of conspiracy theorists made wild claims that Macron may have been “showing off” his connections to the Bohemian Club, a notorious San Francisco-based gentlemen’s encampment known to host very powerful people, including politicians, media executives, influential artists, and other public figures. Over the decades, a host of rumours have spilled out about Satanic rituals allegedly performed at the club, along with homosexual orgies and the use of rent boys, possibly as a means to blackmail individuals. Women are thought to be eschewed by the establishment, and no woman has ever been given full membership.