The release of official photos showing Emmanuel Macron hitting a punching bag have been met with a mixture of praise and consternation in France, Ednews reports via The Guardian.

The photos of the French president, posted on Instagram on Tuesday by his official photographer, Soazig de la Moissonnière, are coloured in moody black and white, and show the president with teeth gritted and biceps bulging as he works out.

Social media users soon began comparing him to Rocky Balboa, while others questioned the timing of the pictures, coming as Macron has called on Europe to ramp up its response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Some said the photos showed him getting ready to take on President Vladimir Putin, himself no stranger to photoshoots designed to show off his sporting prowess.

Women’s magazine Femme Actuelle described the photos more flatteringly, writing that they showed “Brigitte Macron’s husband” with “a determined look, as if he wants to do battle with his opponent … He seems to hit so hard that his biceps pop out from under his black T-shirt.”

Other commentators voiced dismay at the images. French Greens MP Sandrone Rousseau reposted one of the photos with the comment, “What a defeat for progressivism. And what poverty of political communication.”

Writing in the centre-left Libération newspaper, Jonathan Bouchet-Petersen said the photos were a “rather dismaying communication choice” and said it would have been preferable if the photo really were the product of a cheeky social media user as he had initially assumed.

Éric Anceau, a history professor at the University of Lorraine, wrote on X that the photos were “part of the neo-populist virility that certain leaders are fond of today, starting with the master of the genre (until now) Vladimir Putin”.