(Bloomberg) -- A feud between the presidents of Brazil and France over Amazon fires plumbed new depths after Jair Bolsonaro made a sarcastic comment on a social media post mocking the French first lady's physical appearance, drawing an irate response from Emmanuel Macron.
The French leader said Bolsonaro's comment on the post, which compared Brigitte Macron to his own, younger partner, was “extraordinarily disrespectful to my wife” and added he hoped the Brazilian people would soon have a president worthy of them.
“This is sad,” Macron said. “It's sad for him and for the Brazilian people. Brazilian women probably feel ashamed to hear that from their president.” Macron is famously protective of his wife and has been known to go after French media in the past if he feels they have intruded on her privacy or overstepped in their coverage of her.
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On Sunday, Bolsonaro commented on a Facebook post that showed photos of 66-year-old Brigitte alongside the Brazilian president's 37-year-old partner, entitled “Do you understand now why Macron is attacking Bolsonaro?”
“Don't humiliate him, lol,” Bolsonaro replied.
Macron and Bolsonaro have clashed repeatedly in recent days. The French president last week criticized Brazil's handling of Amazon fires and said France would oppose a trade deal between the European Union and the South American trade bloc Mercosur because Bolsonaro had “lied to him” about pledges to address climate change.
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The hostility continued on Monday, with Bolsonaro tweeting that he could not accept Macron's “unreasonable and gratuitous” attacks on the Amazon. He accused the French leader of “hiding his true intentions behind an ‘alliance' of G-7 countries to ‘save' the Amazon, as if we were a colony or nobody's land.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Biarritz at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, ;Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Walter Brandimarte
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