King Charles’ €500K lobster dinner blows hole in French presidency’s budget

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.

Macron hosted the British head of state in September last year at Versailles, historical home of the French monarchy, for a star-studded feast with at least 160 invitees including Rolling Stones’ singer Mick Jagger and British actor Hugh Grant.

The dinner, during which guests enjoyed blue lobster and rose macaroons cost the French presidency close to €475,000 — including over €165,000 on catering and over €40,000 on wine (including a bottle of 2004 Château Mouton Rothschild) and other drinks.

Third-party caterers and decorators led costs to surge for receptions held outside the Elysée, as was the case with Charles III and Modi, who was welcomed at the Louvre and was shown some of France’s most-visited museum’s masterpieces by Macron himself. Total cost: upwards of €400,000.

France’s audit court nonetheless acknowledged some cost-saving efforts, underlining the Élysée’s thriftiness when hosting “cocktails for less than 100 people,” events during which the Palace’s in-house kitchen staff is usually preferred over external contractors.

The Cour des Comptes also slammed the French presidency’s poor travel-planning skills, pointing to a loss of over €830,000 generated by the cancellation of 12 apparently non-refundable trips. A planned but subsequently cancelled trip to Germany in July 2023 alone led to a loss of nearly €500,000, mostly due to transport and accommodation costs.