Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro backtracked on his earlier rejection of financial help from the G7 to fight fires in the Amazon rainforest — on the condition that Emmanuel Macron withdraws his “insults.”
Earlier Tuesday, Brazil Ambassador’s to France Luís Fernando Serra said on French TV that Brazil was rejecting the aid because the decision was taken without involving his country and the “language is ambiguous.”
“We refuse because we see interference. [It’s] help we didn’t ask for,” he said. “The G7 help was decided without Brazil.”
But Bolsonaro later seemed to row back, telling reporters: “First of all, Macron has to take back his insults of me. He called me a liar. Once he does that, then we can talk,” the Independent reported.
The two countries have been at loggerheads for days. On Friday, ahead of the G7 in Biarritz, Macron called for the burning Amazon to lead the agenda of the summit, and said that Bolsonaro “lied to him” about the Mercosur free-trade agreement between the EU and Latin American countries.
Things then got personal. A Bolsonaro supporter posted a meme mocking the appearance of Brigitte Macron and comparing her unfavorably to Brazil’s first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, with the tagline: “Now you understand why Macron is persecuting Bolsonaro?”
The far-right Brazilian leader replied: “Do not humiliate the guy, ha ha.”
Bolsonaro has also accused Macron of having a “colonialist mentality.”
Macron struck back in extraordinarily blunt remarks at the G7 on Monday, saying he hoped that Brazil will soon have a new president. “I hope they will very soon have a president who is up to the task,” Macron told reporters. He called the Brazilian’s comments about his wife “extraordinarily rude” and “sad.”
Serra, the ambassador, gave his, er, expert opinion on the matter on French TV, saying that France’s first lady is “very beautiful, very charming, and very elegant, and very smart.”