The Spectator - Gavin Mortimer Macron is in office, but is he in power? 15 October 2024, 7:38am France's President Emmanuel Macron is said to be unhappy about his government

 Gavin Mortimer

Macron is in office, but is he in power?

15 October 2024, 7:38am

France's President Emmanuel Macron is said to be unhappy about his government (Getty)

Emmanuel Macron is said to be appalled by his new right-wing government. A confidant of the French president conveyed to AFP the depth of his despair. ‘I did not choose this government,’ Macron reportedly told his inner circle. ‘They make me feel ashamed.’

Macron’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level of his second term

There’s little doubt who Macron had in mind when he made his cri du coeur: Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister, a conservative Catholic, who has vowed to crackdown on immigration.

Macron hit back at Retailleau last week during a radio interview on France Inter, pointing out that immigration is ‘our wealth, a strength’. He gave a couple of examples: the scientist Marie Curie and crooner Charles Aznavour.

It was a flippant riposte, an example of Macron playing to the gallery on a radio station that talks up its ‘Progressive’ values. The president knew what sort of immigration Retailleau was talking about: mass uncontrolled immigration, so great it risks overwhelming a country’s infrastructure, as is the case with France.

Retailleau has the support of the majority. Three recent polls revealed how in tune the new interior minister is with the people: 58 per cent agree that immigration is no longer beneficial; 77 per cent want border controls re-introduced, following the example of Germany, and 84 per cent believe that re-establishing law and order should be a priority for this government.

In other words, the French people want an end to seven years of chaos, where crime and illegal immigration have spiralled out of control. That’s not all. Les Echos, the French equivalent of the Financial Times, published a damning editorial last week in which it described how the country’s finances have ‘gone off the rails’ in 2024. In just nine months, a ‘100 billion euro (£85 billion) abyss’ appeared in the public accounts, it claimed. Macron was reportedly aware of the black hole but the Treasury ‘were told to shut up, and the issue of the deficit was swept under the carpet’.

Macron’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level of his second term, 22 per cent, just one per cent higher than his record low, the 21 per cent at the height of the Yellow Vest crisis in 2018.

One wonders what the 22 per cent still find to admire about their president. His international record is as disastrous as his domestic one. He’s antagonised most of the world since 2017, ruining France’s reputation in Africa and diminishing its standing in Europe.

Last month, the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, pressurised Macron into removing Thierry Breton as commissioner for the internal market and replacing him with the more malleable Stéphane Séjourné. ‘France is now relegated to the same level as Italy, Spain, Poland, Finland and Romania,’ complained Breton. ‘It has to be said that its weight is much diluted.’

It was a further sign of how Macron’s – and France’s – influence has diminished during his presidency. The truth is that Macron’s political inexperience has been brutally exposed since he was elected president.

Macron’s political inexperience has been brutally exposed since he was elected president

One tends to forget that he was a novice in 2017. Macron had entered politics five years earlier as a junior member of president Francois Hollande’s staff. In 2014, he was appointed the minister of economics and industry, a position he occupied for two years before quitting to launch his own party, En Marche!

He was elected president because the French fell for his cannily-crafted persona as a break from the past, a man with new ideas who was ‘neither left nor right’, which overlooked the fact that Macron joined the Socialist party in his late twenties before he plotted his reinvention.

Macron also prospered from the misfortune of the conservative Francois Fillon, the strong favourite in 2017, but whose bid for the Élysée was brought down by financial scandal. One of Fillon’s closest advisors in 2017 was Bruno Retailleau. The 63-year-old Retailleau was named in a recent poll as one of the ten most popular political figures in France, as was prime minister Michel Barnier, though the pair were below Marine Le Pen, who topped the list. Macron didn’t even make the top 20.

The president’s friends say that, since he was shunted from the centre stage, he is ‘suffering’.

He’s gone from summit meetings with Vladimir Putin to simpering chats with Variety magazine. The American entertainment weekly was granted an interview in the Élysée last week, an opportunity for Macron to wax lyrical about Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift.

Macron also gushed over the Netflix show, Emily in Paris, describing himself as ‘super proud’ that his wife, Brigitte, had appeared in a recent episode. Nonetheless, the president expressed his concern that the fifth season of the programme will relocate to Rome. ‘We will fight hard,’ he promised. ‘And we will ask them to remain in Paris! “Emily in Paris“ in Rome doesn‘t make sense.’

The Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, expressed his puzzlement at the remarks, commenting: ‘Doesn’t President Macron have more pressing issues to deal with?’

Not really, now that Michel Barnier and Bruno Retailleau are running the government. The grown-ups are back in charge, leaving the youngsters time to watch television

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Written by

Gavin Mortimer

Gavin Mortimer is a British author who lives in Burgundy after many years in Paris. He writes about French politics, terrorism and sport.