Aurélien Tchouaméni: Meet the French soccer star everyone is talking about, even French President Emmanuel Macron
Aurélien Tchouaméni may have come from nowhere, but his meteoric rise has caught the eye of French President Emmanuel Macron.
The 31-year-old French international is an attacking midfielder who plays for AS Nancy and Ligue 1 side Rennes, where he averages 20.7 points per game.
His performances have caught the president’s eye, with the Frenchman praising him on Instagram in September last year with the hashtag #Unejournevoyant (‘a new secret’).
Aurélien Tchouaméni – who also played for Paris Saint Germain for much of his career – is currently preparing for a season in which his team is in the French top-flight, in 2017, to fight for a place in the Europa League.
According to the Independent, Macron invited Tchouaméni to his palace in Versailles, where he met him for a few minutes.
There, he took a few photos with the player – the Independent claims he handed him a football, and the French president even took a selfie with him.
The Guardian reports that many have speculated that it is Macron’s attempts to cultivate an image of himself as a more modern president than his predecessor, President Francois Hollande, who he previously described as a “man in a box” – though the French president insists he is not.
In an interview in the French sports magazine Voix du Paon, the journalist Jean-Michel Lemieux asked the French president what he was doing in Europe where he has lived since his youth in Ménilmontant and later Paris.
The president told him: “I love the idea of Europe.
“I like the idea that you can go to a football match in Rome, you can stay there all day and you can also go to the movies in Rome – you just have to pay a little bit more.”
Aurélien Tchouaméni (L) has become a French international after a season at Ligue 1 side Rennes in 2017