An online shop selling mugs decorated with the face of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and €250 (£223) bracelets spelling out liberté, égalité, and fraternité has sold about €350,000 worth of memorabilia in just three days.
Officials say a total of 7,320 presidential items have been snapped up since the virtual store opened online for business on Friday, making the average spend just under €48.
Sales were boosted by the opening of a pop-up shop in the Elysée’s main courtyard this weekend, where more than 200,000 people took advantage of heritage open days to visit the palace.
The catalogue of around 60 items ranging from €2 for a postcard of the president to €250 for a “gold-filled liberty bracelet”, includes more than keyrings, pens and postcard portraits of Emmanuel Macron and French flags.
A mug carrying the president’s official portrait costs just under €25, a short white T-shirt embroidered with “Première Dame” costs €55 and a sweatshirt emblazoned “Français” or “Française” across the front will set you back €115.
Macron has engaged in a spot of not-so-subtle advertising by sporting one of the store’s more expensive items, a €169 LIP watch with blue, white and red strap.
The Elysée, which insists at least half the souvenirs cost less than €15, says it has plans to expand its range. “From 2019, products will be developed under licence by French brands and will be available more widely through their network of shops, sellers and their foreign exports,” it said in a statement.
“This larger distribution will give greater exposure to the brand name, to the values of the republic, to French culture and its celebrated savoir faire.”
The Elysée takes a cut of 12% of sales of the 100% Made in France items and hopes to raise funds for the restoration of the 300-year-old presidential palace.
Souvenir sales may save the palace but will do little to deflect claims the president is fostering a personality cult more suited to a monarch than head of a republic, particularly the use of some arcane expression uttered by the president during his campaign on T-shirts.
“Is this self-mockery or a personality cult?” asked TV station LCI.
Officials rapidly shut down a row over presidential mugs wrongly stamped “Limoges porcelain”, by announcing they were dropping the company selling them.
As often with the France’s “cultural exception”, French media insisted the online shop was all in the best possible taste and suggested there was no place for “la camelote” (tat).
“If our English neighbours are fond of plates bearing the likeness of Prince Harry, in this case there is, a priori, no kitsch,” LCI’s website said.