A state dinner with the U.K.’s king cost the French nearly €500,000.

A decadent dinner costing nearly €475,000 for the U.K.’s King Charles III helped push France’s Élysée Palace — the office of President Emmanuel Macron —to a record high deficit last year.

France’s love for grand gestures and opulent dining are fully in evidence in the pages of a damning  yearly audit of the Élysée’s budget, released on Monday by the Cour des Comptes, France’s top audit court.

The Élysée’s spending, which includes costs related to the president’s diplomatic and presidential duties as well as administration, personnel, security and estate management, reached a whopping €125 million, plunging the books €8.3 million into the red.

Among the biggest deficit drivers were two luxurious state dinners, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and King Charles III.

  • @naughtEnglish
    6•1 month ago

    Curious why this bot gathers downvotes - can anyone say?

    • @[email protected]English
      9•1 month ago

      Personally, it’s absolutely maddening to see this long ass reply in every thread. I know I can block it, but I choose to downvote instead. Perhaps the bot creator could shorten the reply to a single line and a link?

      Just my $0.02

      • Flying SquidMEnglish
        8•1 month ago

        It’s only a long reply because whatever client your using doesn’t parse spoiler tags.

        This is what it should look like:

        Not one line, but also not especially obtrusive.

    • @[email protected]English
      4•1 month ago

      I think it rated a news outlet as “moderately credible / left bias” causing some to feel attacked.

      • @[email protected]English
        5•1 month ago

        The usual complaint that I see people bring up is that the people behind it have a pro-Israel bias. But for a quick glance, it’s fine. The issue is that on Reddit, you’d have like 5 bot replies for 1000 human replies, and on Lemmy you’ll have 3 for 15 of the same, so they stand out more. In my opinion, anyway.

        • Saik0English
          2•1 month ago

          My complaint is kind of in this vein. I joined Lemmy to get away from this kind of bullshit. I go to comments to read what other people are saying, not to have a bot shove it’s opinion in my face on literally every fucking thread. Especially if the article has 1 or 2 comments so you go to the comments to see what people are discussing just to find it’s 2 fucking bots, so no discourse is actually happening.

          The bullshit response of “well block it” is actually worse… Cause then you miss any responses made under it. So every time I see it, I just downvote it and move on. I do this with basically every bot I run into on here.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•1 month ago

      People question the ability for it to be objective due to it being created and run by a single person combined with being an automated process that implies it is authoritative in the context of the communities where the bot is automated.

      I think MBFC is about as good as is available, kind of like Snopes. Both have a history of trying to be objective even if they aren’t perfect.

        • @naughtEnglish
          1•1 month ago

          They frequently report on conspiracies and political myths, too