Emmanuel Macron left guests squirming after bursting into song at a state dinner in Armenia, launching into an awkward singalong with the country's leaders. The French president grabbed the spotlight on Monday night, belting out the 1965 classic La Bohème by Charles Aznavour while seated at a piano with microphone in hand.
President Vahagn Khachaturyan stood beside him, while Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan joined in on drums. Footage shared online shows Macron smiling as he croons nostalgic lyrics about youth and hardship, with guests applauding at the end of his performance.
Aznavour, often dubbed France's answer to Frank Sinatra, was born to Armenian parents and became a cultural bridge between the two nations, a link Macron appeared keen to lean into during the visit. The musical moment did not end there. Khachaturyan later took to the piano himself, playing Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves), another French classic.
Macron has form when it comes to the tune, having previously sung it at the Élysée Palace in 2023. The impromptu performance came during his state visit as Armenia looks to shift closer to Europe and away from Russia. France is home to around 400,000 people of Armenian descent, one of the largest diasporas outside Russia and the United States.
This is not the only time the French President's singing has made headlines in recent years. In 2023, footage showed Macron singing a traditional song in the street after a televised address in which he sought to soothe tensions over his unpopular pension reforms. The video was taken on April 17, in the 6th arrondissement in Paris after Macron's speech.
'The president took a moment with his wife (Brigitte Macron) after his speech (on Monday evening). They encountered a group of young people who were singing... so he joined them in a song from the Pyrenees which he knows and loves,' they said. In the night-time video, recorded around 10pm, Macron can be seen reading from his phone the words of 'Le Refuge', a song about a lodge in the mountain range on France's southwestern border with Spain, singing with men in their 20s and 30s. One of the singers in the video called Géraud said he was part of a Parisian all-men choir whose members show 'their love of the country through regional songs'.
