A group of French lawmakers visited Damascus on Sunday to meet with the Syrian President and see how things are unfolding in the war-torn country.
Rochedy, the former leader of Front National's (FN) youth wing, was among the French delegation and during a meeting with the Syrian president he snapped a cool selfie with al-Assad, which later went viral online.
Salut! 😘 #SelfieBachar pic.twitter.com/Nd8gEk2Zj4
— Julien Rochedy (@JRochedy) March 27, 2016
According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, Philippe Juvin, a French politician and Member of the European Parliament, condemned Rochedy's selfie with Assad, calling it a "scandal."
However, readers of the newspapers had a very different opinion about Rochedy's selfie:
"And to grant the Saudi King the Legion d'Honneur is not a scandal?" — user Janus77 asked, referring to the controversial decision of the French government to give the Saudi King the highest French Order for his military merits.
"What's the deal? Philippe Juvin should just calm down," said another Le Figaro reader Epiquebs2.
"This picture will be the wallpaper for my computer screen!" the user named Heretic said.
In his own defense, Rochedy said that his choice to take a picture with al-Assad was his own personal decision which had nothing to do either with him being the former FN member or the part of the French delegation that visited Syria.
Je suis en Syrie pour raisons personnelles. Le selfie est de mon initiative et n'a rien à voir avec les parlementaires, dont je ne suis pas.
— Julien Rochedy (@JRochedy) March 27, 2016
