Mastodawn

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

https://lemmy.world/post/18109078

King Charles’ €500K lobster dinner blows hole in French presidency’s budget - Lemmy.World

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 [https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2024-07/20240729-S2024-1053-Comptes-et-gestion-de-la-presidence-de-la-Republique_2023.pdf] 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.

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naught Jul 30, 2024

Curious why this bot gathers downvotes - can anyone say?

breakingcups Jul 30, 2024

I dunno. I think it adds something of value without being obtrusive.

Deestan Jul 30, 2024

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

sensiblepuffin Jul 30, 2024

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.

RCTreeFiddy Jul 30, 2024

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 Squid Jul 30, 2024

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.

RCTreeFiddy Jul 30, 2024

Good point. I guess several mobile clients are having issues with the spoiler tag.

snooggums Jul 30, 2024

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.

catloaf Jul 30, 2024

Although Snopes’ verdicts are far less important, being on things like urban myths.

naught Jul 31, 2024

They frequently report on conspiracies and political myths, too

andrewta Jul 30, 2024

I’m all for eating a nice dinner. But how do you get to a dinner bill that size?

catloaf Jul 30, 2024

Mark up everything by 500%

The Liver Jul 30, 2024

Do you mean 500x? Because that looks like 500x.

saltesc Jul 30, 2024

Well, la de da with your fancy regular €100K dinners.

jqubed Jul 30, 2024

Step one is probably hosting it at the Palace of Versailles

Bassman1805 Jul 30, 2024

Famous chefs who have more people requesting them than they have time in the day, so they go to whoever pays the most.

bluGill Jul 30, 2024

Meanwhile just as good chefs that didn't get the fame break (or possibly better but their personality means they shouldn't be let out of the kitchen) are struggling to make ends meet.

TriPolarBearz Jul 30, 2024

Gordon: welcome to my fancy private dinner experience. What can I make for you?

Guest: I would like your finest grilled cheese sandwich please.

Gordon: oh fuck, oh shit!

andrewta Jul 30, 2024

Lol I can hear him saying that.

Also for good measure

“for dessert I’d like, a banana freshly peeled with a small glass of grocery store orange juice.”

Glowy Jul 30, 2024

You may have to be more specific with the definition of grilled cheese for him.

Ramsay’s “ultimate” grilled cheese

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

deranger Jul 30, 2024

What the fuck was that?? I was hoping for some chronic grilly chee but that was an abomination. I’ve seen children make better grilled cheese sandwiches.

aStonedSanta Jul 30, 2024

I wonder if he has ever publicly commented about that video lmao.

Soggy Jul 31, 2024

He’s talked about it a bit in response to criticism, IIRC he said his producer kinda set him up for failure. I know it comes up here youtu.be/ENhfIeZF_AY?si=KHczjpQYCkBgTGaG (long video but very much worth it if you care about food)

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

UselesslyBrisk Jul 30, 2024

For one…thats a melt. And it doesnt look great. But I think there in lies the rub. even the best chefs get there by experimenting and trying new things and even then, when they get outside their wheelhouse, they arent any better than that dude at your local diner.

Obi Jul 30, 2024

You people make me sick.

A grilled cheese consists of only these following items. Cheese. Bread with spread (usually butter). This entire subreddit consist of “melts”. Almost every “grilled cheese” sandwich i see on here has other items added to it. The fact that this subreddit is called “grilledcheese” is nothing short of utter blasphemy.

Let me start out by saying I have nothing against melts, I just hate their association with sandwiches that are not grilled cheeses. Adding cheese to your tuna sandwich? It’s called a Tuna melt. Totally different. Want to add bacon and some pretentious bread crumbs with spinach? I don’t know what the hell you’d call that but it’s not a grilled cheese.

I would be more than willing to wager I’ve eaten more grilled cheeses in my 21 years than any of you had in your entire lives. I have one almost everyday and sometimes more than just one sandwich. Want to personalize your grilled cheese? Use a mix of different cheeses or use sourdough or french bread. But if you want to add some pulled pork and take a picture of it, make your own subreddit entitled “melts” because that is not a fucking grilled cheese.

I’m not a religious man nor am I anything close to a culinary expert. But as a bland white mid-western male I am honestly the most passionate person when it comes to grilled cheese and mac & cheese. All of you foodies stay the hell away from our grilled cheeses and stop associating your sandwich melts with them. Yet again, it is utter blasphemy and it rocks me to the core of my pale being.

Shit, I stopped lurking after 3 years and made this account for the sole purpose of posting this. I’ve seen post after post of peoples “grilled cheeses” all over reddit and it’s been driving me insane. The moment I saw this subreddit this morning I finally snapped. Hell, I may even start my own subreddit just because I know this one exists now.

You god damn heretics. Respect the grilled cheese and stop changing it into whatever you like and love it for it what it is. Or make your damn melt sandwich and call it for what it is. A melt.

BeatTakeshi Jul 30, 2024

Ain’t reddit you stoopid

Redex Jul 30, 2024

That’s almost certainly jus a copypasta

5too Jul 31, 2024

Yep: www.reddit.com/r/…/you_people_make_me_sick/

You people make me sick.

A grilled cheese consists of only these following items. Cheese. Bread with spread (usually butter). This entire subreddit consist of "melts"....

reddit

dch82 Jul 31, 2024

Honey wake up new copypasta just dropped

OneWomanCreamTeam Jul 31, 2024

Definitely not a new copypasta. That’s from a famous reddit post from years ago.

My favorite part is, shortly after the original post was made r/grilledcheese (the sub it was posted in) was filled with memes like this:

UselesslyBrisk Jul 31, 2024

Its a copypasta from /r/grilledcheese from some years back.

funkless_eck Jul 30, 2024

same as it ever was.

Pick an industry that is also the case. In marketing There are people earning 7 figures for configuring a Google ads deck that a talented undergrad could do in half the time

In acting you can just throw a dart at the SAG directory.

Painting, music, business administration, politics. You name it.

andrewta Jul 30, 2024

Good point

Deestan Jul 30, 2024

They felt they had money to burn after cutting pensions?

andrewta Jul 30, 2024

I misread that at first and thought you said “cutting peasants”.

bobs_monkey Jul 30, 2024

Close enough really

Deestan Jul 30, 2024

Well it is France.

Tiefling IRL Jul 30, 2024

Hand fished, gold coated lobster: $1,000 Cooking the lobster: $474,000

snooggums Jul 30, 2024

Perfection costs a whole lot more than really, really good because costs go up exponentially.

You need multiple times the staff on hand to cook and server everything at the same time, and they should be highly paid professionals. You need to be able to discard the majority of your food supplies, which already cost a lot more than normal, to have the perfect version of every dish. The setting probably costs a lot to set up and clean up after, and attention to detail costs time and money.

It is a huge waste, but that is why it costs so much.

andrewta Jul 30, 2024

Good explanation. Still having a hard time on seeing that much, but good explanation

BakerBagel Jul 30, 2024

Everyone also has to pass a bunch of security and background checks, which costs money as well. And i am sure the supply chains for staye dinners are more expensive for the same reason

MonkderVierte Jul 31, 2024

We are talking about taste, all “perfection” is made up there.

Pooptimist Jul 30, 2024

A few hundred years ago they chopped heads off of kings and queens for spending too much on everything, and now they do it for them

filtoid Jul 31, 2024

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

(The more things change, the more they stay the same)

reagansrottencorpse Jul 30, 2024

Why would you waste all that money on a king who is a figurehead at best ?

bobs_monkey Jul 30, 2024

Because it’s big club and we ain’t in it

mecfs Jul 30, 2024

I think it was a 100 person dinner full of french and english celebrities, including macron, and the king.

octopus_ink Jul 30, 2024

Well they seem to have saved a lot by not providing reasonable quarters for the Olympic village so it probably works out in the end.

Quacksalber Jul 30, 2024

Imagine you get a dish worth probably tens of thousands alone and you don’t like it.

TacticsConsort Jul 30, 2024

What. How do you even spend that much on a dinner, even for 1000 people.

And like. It’s King Charles. I loved the Queen and thought she was iconic, and even I don’t really care about Charles. All of my friends in my circle actively despise him and what he represents. Literally why are you trying to curry favour with him that hard.

ArbitraryValue Jul 30, 2024

$500 per person wouldn’t be that much, given that a middle-class wedding often costs around $250 per person. (I’m guessing each guest at this dinner drank well over $500 of wine alone.)

TaTTe Jul 30, 2024

I have no clue how you define “middle-class” but not even the fanciest weddings I’ve been to have spent even close to $250 per person. That kind of expenditure sounds quite a lot more like upper-class to me. Assuming you invite 100 people to the wedding, an average Joe will not have 25k to spend on one party.

ArbitraryValue Jul 30, 2024

the national average cost of a wedding in 2023 was $35,000

Source. I’m not vouching for that source but it does match my personal experience.

TaTTe Jul 30, 2024

The issue with these statistics is that they look at the average, which is heavily boosted by the exceptionally expensive weddings of the higher upper-class. The median is significantly lower.

silkstemcollective.com/median-and-average-wedding…

Also I’m not American, maybe people there just spend a lot more on weddings in general than what I’m used to.

Median vs. Average Wedding Cost - Silk Stem Collective

$26,720 was the average wedding cost – but 3 in 4 couples spent less than $20,000. We explain how the big spenders skew the average.

Silk Stem Collective - Rent Wedding Flowers

ArbitraryValue Jul 30, 2024

You’re correct, but even the inflation-adjusted median is still probably over $20,000 right now (based on the assumptions that it was $18,000 in 2019 and 2020 is not representative). I think my broader point still stands.

dogslayeggs Jul 30, 2024

I can go to a restaurant down the street that isn’t crazy expensive and spend $150/person with alcohol easily. I’ve had Michelin starred dinners for $500/person with normal person nice wine. This a fancy state dinner for the fucking king with likely very expensive wine. French Laundry, one of the best restaurants in the world, is close to $1000/person with wine and that isn’t for fancy $2000/bottle wine.

As far as wedding costs go, $25k is pretty normal for a wedding. My cheapest friend cheaped out hard on his wedding and spent $5000 over 25 years ago in Indiana. Getting a wedding down to $10k is hard these days. The median is now $18.5k. So if the median spend is close to $20k, then middle class people are often spending more than that.

www.moneygeek.com/…/average-cost-of-wedding/

Average Cost of a Wedding: How Much Are Couples Spending?

There’s a lot of preparation needed before saying “I do”. MoneyGeek explores the average and median costs of a wedding and the top expenses to expect.

MoneyGeek.com

Nightwatch Admin Jul 30, 2024

Let him eat cake next time!

cygnus Jul 30, 2024

This works out to 2500 euros per person, which is expensive but not that bad in context. It’s easily possible to drop hundreds at a restaurant in my medium-sized city, and an event like this is obviously at a whole other level.

dogslayeggs Jul 30, 2024

They were probably opening $1000/bottle Burgundy wines, too.