Emmanuel Macron sets the tone for five more turbulent years
After a month at his Mediterranean retreat, the Fort de Brégançon, during which – unusually for him – he entertained none of his fellow world leaders but stuck to the task of preparing his autumn agenda, Emmanuel Macron has been at pains this week to show that he means business.
His first five years as President, which he had hoped would see him confirmed not only as a radical reformer at home but as the undisputed leader of the EU, turned out instead to be dominated by street protests, Islamist attacks, squabbles over Brexit and the long-running anguish of the pandemic, culminating in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his personal humiliation at the wrong end of Vladimir Putin’s Big Table.
The five years to come, ending in May 2027, will, we are assured, be hard-nosed and practical. In a downbeat assessment of the “end of abundance,”, delivered as if to his ministers but in fact a secular version of the Pope’s Urbi et Orbi address to the faithful, Macron sought to underline the depth of the problems they face and his corresponding seriousness of purpose.
What lay ahead, if not exactly blood, sweat and tears, was “sacrifice”. The horn of plenty, he implied, had been drained. France was at a “tipping point,” facing a difficult winter and a new era of instability caused by climate change and the war in Ukraine. Referencing the totality of recent events, up to and including the heatwaves and drought experienced across the nation this summer, Macron acknowledged the widespread perception that France and its neighbours were living through a series of crises each worse than the last.
Complacency, he suggested, was at the root of the problem – the assumption that technology would solve any problems that arose and that natural resources were somehow inexhaustible. In the same way, “insouciance” had led the free world to underplay threats to democracy and human rights, the rise of illiberal regimes and the strengthening of authoritarian governments.
Seated to the President’s right as he spoke was the Finance minister Bruno Le Maire, tasked with supercharging the French economy, while to his left was Catherine Colonna, the new foreign minister, latterly ambassador to the United Kingdom and a frequent invitée on the Today Programme. Less prominent in the line-up was the tough-talking interior minister Gérald Darmanin, against whom charges of sexual violence, including rape, were recently dismissed by an examining magistrate before they could be brought to trial.
Facing him on the other side of the table was his prime minister Elisabeth Borne, with whom he had dined the previous evening and who was one of the few to spend time with him at the Fort de Brégançon. Borne, aged 62, is known as the Dame du Faire – not a homophonic reference to Margaret Thatcher but a tribute to her reputation for getting things done. Formerly a top civil servant, government advisor and CEO of the Paris public transport network, it will be she who keeps his rickety En Marche party (recently rebranded as Renaissance) from falling apart at the seams. He has worked through two prime ministers already. His third will be expected to stay the course, and while it is early days, he looks to have made a sound choice.
His domestic agenda over the next 12 months is expected to focus on crisis management, with the cost of diesel, electricity and gas charges, prices in the shops and necessary increases in benefits all set to loom large. Space will have to be found for legislation on the pension and benefits reform that was supposed to have been accomplished two years ago. But the opposition parties are promising roadblocks at every turn, meaning that the relevant bills – complex and far-reaching – could once more end up on the Élysée’s back burner next to its ambitious plans for further EU integration.
But no new administration expects to fail on its first day. Buoyed up by the fact that France has emerged from the chaos of recent years with its overall economy and level of industrial production in good shape (an achievement for which he has received little or no applause), Macron remains committed to full employment and a balanced budget by 2027. To what extent he can expect to make good on such a bold undertaking remains to be seen.
On the foreign policy front, he has vowed to keep faith with Ukraine and to sustain pressure on Putin, taking a line somewhere between the positions adopted by Boris Johnson and Olaf Scholz. At the same time, having more or less abandoned efforts to stem the Islamist tide in Mali, he has had to admit that France’s perennial mission to preserve the peace in the Sahel is something of a sham. But while his defence minister regroups his forces in Niger, the President himself has embarked on a surprise three-day visit to Algeria, during which he hopes to reset relations with the North African country that 60 years ago, after a bloody colonial struggle, finally achieved its independence.
Relations with the UK are not top of Macron’s list of priorities. Brexit, with all its frustrations, lacks the vital force it had in the months preceding the shock of Covid-19. It could even be said that relations with Boris Johnson were on the mend, helped by the latter’s positive leadership on Ukraine. But if Liz Truss, as Johnson’s successor, thinks that she can browbeat the French leader into abandoning the Northern Ireland Protocol or clearing the beaches at Calais of would-be immigrants, she is in for a rude awakening. The honeymoon between the two could be both short-lived and colourful.
It is often said that the Fifth Republic grants French presidents more direct power than is enjoyed by other western leaders, and on paper this is so. But power does not easily translate into authority without sustained levels of success, and success is all too often dependent on factors outside the President’s control. Emmanuel Macron was given a rough ride during his first five years. Every year was marked by crisis. This time round, having lost his overall majority in the National Assembly in June, the auguries look little better. He will be relying on the wisdom provided by experience, along with a better run of fortune, to see him come out even marginally ahead of the game.
Much will depend on the strategies adopted by his enemies in the Assembly. On the Left, the loose coalition known as Nupes (pronounced Noo-Pez) is determined to reduce him to the status of Dead Man Walking. On the Right, Marine Le Pen still dares to hope that next time round, having proved herself a responsible parliamentary leader, she could yet succeed him as President. And in the middle, the Conservatives, still leaderless but beginning to regain some measure of confidence after five desperate years, are debating among themselves which way to turn. The politics should be entertaining. The question is, can the people of France expect to benefit from the confusion?