Macron shifts to the right and sets a new course
The political ideology known as “macronism” has always been about action, even agitation, at least in verbal form. Emmanuel Macron appeared on the scene in 2017 and promised a 'revolution'. Since then, for more than six years as president of France, he has embraced a “refoundation” and renamed his political party “Renaissance.” Now he calls for civilian 'rearmament'.
It may not be clear from this stimulating lexicon of a restless man that the 46-year-old Macron has in many ways moved in a conservative direction. The other word that starts with “R” and characterizes a president whose roots are in the Socialist Party is “right.”
Mr. Macron's primetime press conference this week was peppered with the words 'order' and 'respect' as the president called for 'La Marseillaise', the French national anthem, to be taught in primary school and for the experimental reintroduction of school uniforms.
He would, he said, work to ensure that “France remains France” by reintroducing citizenship classes, introducing a form of mandatory community service for teenagers, combating illegal immigration and reducing police presence on the streets to double down on drugs and 'incivility'. Mr. Macron had clearly liberated his inner self de Gaulle.
As he nodded and winked to the right, his actions were striking. “Macronism is dead, long live Sarko-macronism!” Franz-Olivier Giesbert wrote in the weekly Le Point, referring to former President Nicolas Sarkozy, a right-wing politician with an Energizer Bunny style.
This was perhaps a little unfair to Mr Macron, who delivered a 150-minute tour de force covering every issue from the war in Ukraine to the spread of infertility in French society. His performance was also a reminder Americans about what young people can achieve in politics.
Macron's aim was to set a course for his new government, led by Gabriel Attal, who at 34 years old is the youngest prime minister in modern French history.
The composition of Attal's government, with eight of the fifteen ministries in the hands of politicians from the center-right party Les Républicains, was already a clear indication that Macron was done with the ambiguity that earned him the nickname “the” at the same time president .
The decisive turn toward the youth and the right reflected several things, officials close to Macron said. Morale at the Élysée Palace was low and “lame-duck” murmurs increased as the president, who is term-limited and must leave office in 2027, faced growing unpopularity and turned for a sense of direction . According to polls, about two-thirds of the country is hostile to him.
Because the biggest challenge for Macron comes from the far right, in the form of the eternal presidential candidate Marine Le Penand because he depends on support in the National Assembly from the center-right Republican Party to pass legislation, the president has a strong incentive to act.
He does not have an absolute majority in Parliament, a dilemma that no amount of verbal acrobatics can remove.
At the press conference, Mr Macron called Ms Le Pen's National Rally “the party of collective impoverishment” and vowed to address “the sense of dispossession” felt by some French people – an apparent reference to the impact of immigration , especially from North Africa, which Mrs Le Pen has exploited with her xenophobic invective.
The most immediate political test of Macron's decisions will come during the European Parliament elections in June.
The president wants to force a far-right victory by countering the charismatic appeal of Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old president of the National Rally. Mr Macron has now deployed Mr Attal, whose telegenic certainty and easy adaptability make him a natural protege of the president, against the youthful right-wing leader.
After the election, Macron will rely on Attal to undermine Ms Le Pen's popularity through tough measures on immigration and security. “France will never reconcile with decline,” Attal said in his acceptance speech earlier this month. He used the words 'strong' and 'power' six times.
The Olympic Games in Paris come this summer, and the president is banking on a triumphant moment of beauty and pageantry from the banks of the Seine to the northern suburbs to boost his presidency. He announced on Thursday that admission to all kinds of cultural performances would be free for two months during the summer to coincide with the Olympic Games.
The mystery of Mr Macron's unpopularity is that he has been a successful president on many levels – overcoming the wave of Yellow Vest protests, overcoming the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic and sharply reducing unemployment to just over 7 per cent. maintaining modest growth despite the consequences of the war in Ukraine and attracting high levels of foreign investment.
Indeed, France recently had a reason to gloat. The neighboring country Germanywhich entered a recession last year, has grown just 0.7 percent since 2019 and is facing widespread street protests sparked in part by a decision to phase out diesel fuel subsidies – the very issue that prompted 2018 the French Yellow Vest movement.
The current argument that the French economy is today stronger than the former German superpower seems convincing.
France, with its successful reliance on nuclear energy for about 60 to 70 percent of its electricity generation, enjoys making fun of Germany's lack of domestic energy sources. At the same time, the rapid rise in Germany of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as the AfD, reflects a crisis of confidence and malaise usually associated with France. The National Rally is an old phenomenon that has now entered the political mainstream; The strength of the AfD in Germany is shockingly new.
Can Mr Macron translate any of these achievements into greater popularity? The answer is unclear because much of the dislike for him lies more in feeling than in analysis – a sense that he is somehow strange, too self-centered, too enamored with his own voice, a man from 'Jupiter' who doesn't know how to be. stroke the back of a cow, an essential French political qualification.
One thing is clear: he has rolled the dice to keep Ms Le Pen out of the country's highest office, and the clock is now ticking. As for France remaining France, it will undoubtedly take care of itself.