Emmanuel Macron gulps down a bottle of Corona as Toulouse rugby players cheer him on.

He can often be seen singing ‘Allez Les Bleus’ from the stands while cheering on French sports stars.

But it was more of a case of ‘allez les booze’ when French President Emmanuel Macron drank a bottle of Corona in front of rugby players cheering for him at the weekend.

The 45-year-old tilted his head back and downed his beer in the Toulouse dressing room following the team’s dramatic 29-26 win over La Rochelle, a win that clinched the national league title.

As Macron slammed the empty bottle onto the counter, he was met with resounding cheers from Toulouse’s coaching staff and players following their victory in the French Top 14 final at the Stade de France on Saturday night.

Macron, who had watched the game from the VIP lounge, was then seen smiling broadly and shaking hands with the rugby players.

Subsequently, the players and staff agreed to take a “vow of silence” over Macron’s antics, Le Figaro reports. But the images appeared on French television channels before going viral on social media.

The response to Macron’s antics was mixed, with some saying it was a “very nice and spontaneous moment”, while others criticized it as illustrative of “toxic masculinity”.

Toulouse manager Clément Poitrenaud said: “All I can say is that he had a good reception.

Jean-Luc Moudenc, the mayor of Toulouse, told French radio station France Bleu, adding: ‘It was a very nice moment, very spontaneous. The president was challenged to empty a bottle and he did it in a few seconds.

“Afterwards, it was copiously sprayed by the players who, naturally, after so much tension (from the match), let off steam.”

But Sandrine Rousseau, an MP for the Green party, shared the images on Twitter, saying: “Toxic masculinity in political leadership in one image.”

‘A president who shares the joy of 23 players and is part of their traditions. That’s all,” replied ruling party deputy Jean-Rene Cazeneuve.

Macron is a huge sports fan and is well known for his visits to the dressing rooms of French sports teams, but it doesn’t always go as planned.

In December, after Les Bleus lost the soccer World Cup final in Qatar, Macron made an appearance in the team’s locker room to give an emotional post-match pep talk.

But the players, many of whom didn’t look at Macron, seemed unimpressed, giving him only lukewarm applause after he finished.

And chilling footage from the World Cup final showed Macron awkwardly trying to comfort French soccer star Kylian Mbappe on the pitch after France’s 4-2 loss on penalties to Argentina, only for the player to ignore the leader’s attempts.

And Macron once again tried to take center stage following Toulouse’s victory in the French rugby Top 14 final, this time drinking a Corona beer.

Like most French presidents, Macron he is most often seen with wine in hand, and once claimed to have had one glass at lunch and one in the evening.

He has also given fervent support to France’s famed wine industry, even blocking attempts by public health authorities to promote the concept of ‘dry January’, turning the first month of the year into four weeks of abstinence from alcohol.

“The president has a responsibility to be a role model in terms of setting a healthy example of behavior,” Bernard Basset of the Association Addictions France charity told BFM on Monday.

“In this case, you are associating sport, partying and alcohol consumption in a context of male peer pressure where everyone is drinking a bit to excess,” he added.

“It’s inappropriate,” William Lowenstein, a doctor and addiction specialist, told the same channel. You could do it, but not in front of the cameras.

However, the images could help the ratings of a politician long criticized for being out of touch with ordinary people.

His popularity plummeted to a near-record low in March and April of this year when he achieved a highly unpopular raise in the retirement age and he was booed by sections of the crowd when he took the field before Saturday’s game.

So low was his popularity that it was thought better for him to shake hands with the players in the French Cup soccer final in the hallway rather than on the pitch.

Although alcohol consumption has decreased in France in the last 50 years, around 49,000 deaths are caused by the intoxicant each year and excessive consumption is “one of the main causes of hospital admissions,” according to the Ministry of Health.