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The sunglasses worn at Davos by French President Emmanuel Macron to hide a hemorrhage in his left eye have generated significant media attention, and the manufacturer is bracing for a flood of orders.
"On average, we produce about a hundred a year of that model, but with this publicity, we will have to produce a thousand this year. We already have customers asking for the same model," Stefano Fulchir, CEO of iVision Tech—the Italian company that owns the small French producer that manufactures them—told the RTL station.
The sunglasses, which Macron also wore last week during his end-of-year address to the Armed Forces, have now taken on an international dimension, which U.S. President Donald Trump commented on in his own speech: "He wants to play tough."
In reality, as Macron himself stated, his only purpose was to hide the hemorrhage, which Élysée medical services deemed minor, but which is still visible in the French president's eye.
By extension, they have put the small company Henry Jullien on the map. The firm employs about 10 people in Lons-le-Saunier, near the Swiss border, and is one of the few survivors remaining in this town that for years hosted a major French optical production industry.
Although many assumed they were a famous American model, they are actually the 'Pacifico' model from this small company, which was bought in 2023 by the Italian giant iVision Tech, but which maintains all of its production in that town located in the heart of the Jura massif in the Franche-Comté region.
Macron bought them in 2024, though he had not been seen wearing them at official events, which surprised Fulchir when he walked around with them on last week among soldiers and warplanes at the Istres base, where he appealed for an increase in France's defense capacity in the current international context.
When he took them off and showed his eye reddened by the hemorrhage, Macron made a joke:
"It's the eye of the tiger and, for those who don't know, it's a sign of determination."
[Publicidad]