On Sunday October 8, Emmanuel Macron came to the table. Place de la République, in Paris, he participated in Paralympic Day symbolically launching the final stretch before the Paralympic Games, which will take place in the capital, from August 28 to September 8, 2024, in the wake of the Olympic Games. And took the opportunity to let off some steam. After painfully trying to score a few baskets in a wheelchair, he armed himself with a table tennis racket to play a few visibly contested points in mixed doubles.
But what level was the match in question? Difficult to judge from this image alone, but the very dubious handling of the presidential racket suggests that Emmanuel Macron is not a champion. The color of the ball says much the same thing. While amateur players play more often with orange balls, pros play with white balls, which are rounder and more resistant than their counterparts.
Since we’re talking about colors and table tennis here (it’s not that often), let’s take the opportunity to talk about rackets and remember that the colors on both sides do have a function. These correspond to two different coatings, one more aggressive, the other more defensive. Let us note, however, and to be completely complete on this crucial subject, that it is no longer compulsory since 2021 that the colors be red and black. Black remains mandatory on one side of the racket so that colorblind players can find their way around, but table tennis players can replace red with green, blue, pink or even purple.
For this great occasion, Emmanuel Macron did not bring out the official table tennis outfit, but his Sunday shirt, already seen many times on such occasions. Devoid of a collar return – as well as of any stylistic interest – it at least allows us to clarify how to distinguish a Mandarin collar from an officer collar. While on the first, without buttons, the two sides of the collar do not overlap, they touch on the second, necessarily equipped with a button. Here, then? Officer collar.
How can we not note, finally, that Emmanuel Macron had today perpetuated the great political tradition of rolling up his sleeves? If the placement of buttons at the bottom of shirt and jacket sleeves originally allowed, in the 18th century, surgeons to quickly roll up their sleeves to take action quickly, it now seems to only have the function of materializing the force of a policy on the ground. Or at the table, therefore.
