Macron shows off his Yves Saint Laurent hair shirt

It was as if Narcissus had broken off from gazing at his reflection in the water and announced that from now on his only concern would be the well-being of others. Emmanuel Macron has discovered his inner humility. Had he been just a tad overbearing – even arrogant – in the early months of his presidency? Perhaps. 

Had he outsmarted himself when he dismissed the threat posed by the gilets-jaunes in 2018? A shrug. “Sometimes I was hard … impetuous. But I have since learned to view people with more indulgence and good will. I have learned to love the French better.” 

Where Boris Johnson can’t stop boasting of “the greatest vaccine rollout in Europe,” his counterpart in France prefers to try on a hair shirt, albeit one by Yves SaintLaurent. The impact of Covid is not only as a national disaster, he wishes us to know,  but an opportunity for personal renewal.  

“The pandemic has taught me about vulnerability . . . humility. It has made me realise in a very real sense that unacceptable inequalities continue to exist [in France]. I am more sensitive to some things than I was, but just as ambitious for our country.” 

The television interview, shown last night on TF1, in which Macron bared just a smidgin of his soul, lasted a full two hours – an eternity in political journalism – without actually revealing much that was new. The late Anthony Clare would probably have probed a little deeper for an episode of In the Psychiatrists’s Chair. Andrew Neil or Andrew Marr would have gone for the jugular. But the journalists of TF1, France’s equivalent of ITV, though well-briefed and professional, were self-consciously restrained by lese majesté – the respectful holding back that invariably accompanies an audience with the man whom even his enemies refer to as le Président de la République. 

On the pandemic, he was resolute (as we have since seen with the ban on non-essential travel between France and the UK). On the economy, he promised to maintain the approach that has keep French industry turning over and actually reduced the jobless total. At the same time, he would (having learned lessons from past failures) continue to pursue reform of the bloated public sector, including changes to pension provision and the age of retirement. Beyond that – his equivalent of blood, sweat and tears – he was ready to listen more and to demonstrate an inclusiveness and empathy that (to borrow again from Churchill) has to date been effectively disguised.    

From Jupiter, by way of Narcissus, to man of the people has been a rough ride for the man referred to by Le Monde as “the current tenant of the Élysée”. Macron has been forced to acknowledge that he got a lot wrong in his first years in office and that, with Valérie Pécresse, the new centre-right hopeful, snapping at his heels, – to say nothing of the dog-fight on the far-right between Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour –  he has much to overcome if he hopes to win a second term. 

Not that Macron was confirming that he had entered the race, which doesn’t come under starter’s orders until mid-March, with the first round of voting due on April 10. To do so would have had the effect of diminishing his status as the disinterested president-in-place and reduced him to the ranks of a contender, alongside Pécresse, Le Pen, “Z”, Anne Hidalgo and the rest. Humble he may be, but he still has his pride. 

In the meantime, while undertaking a “listening” tour of the Republic, he will do all in his power to defeat Omicron, using very tool in the box. And from January 1, he will attempt to show that France’s six-month chairmanship of the European Council (which he could have deferred in an election year) will reveal him at last as the master mechanic of the Franco-German engine that will drive the EU forward into a new era of prosperity and mutual respect. 

Narcissus wouldn’t know where to look.