When Emmanuel Macron came into power in 2017, right after the Brexit and Trump shocks to the establishment, the cover of The Economist ran an image depicting the new French president walking on water. Behind him, a pair of ankles shod in heels poked out of the water. The shoes were meant to belong to Marine Le Pen, the “far right” candidate Macron had just defeated. The message: A messiah’s just arrived to save the continent from a populist nightmare. Macron had something for everyone in France—opportunities for the less educated, lower taxes for businesses, help for the uninsured, expanded health services, etc. Well-dressed, handsome, and charismatic, the new president convinced many he was the guy who’d put France and Europe back on the right track.
Macron defeated Le Pen again in 2022. His second (and final, by law) five-year term runs until April or May of next year, depending on whether a runoff election is necessary. He's now in the lame-duck stage of a 10-year presidency, so it's time to grade his performance.
A quick glance at the live footage of violent street protests all over France provided by media outlets like the NDTV YouTube channel—the churches and historic buildings reduced to ashes, looting, rioting, and clashing with the police—puts to rest the delusion that Macron’s France’s new Jesus.
Macron’s 10 years in residence at the Élysée Palace was a failure. The rampant havoc in the streets—the worst France has seen this century—is only part of the story. While it wasn't that long ago that France and the world gasped in horror at the thought that anyone named “Le Pen” could ever hold the presidency, Macron has set the stage for the National Rally Party member to do just that. Right now, she's the front-runner to win in 2027. Her message is likely to be some variation of, “The useless elites can't do their most important job—keep you safe. It's time to give our populism a try.”
While Macron’s not without accomplishments—leading Europe’s push to take more responsibility for its own security, reducing unemployment, etc.—the nation’s not impressed. Start with the president’s aloof governing style. Like Trump, he carries himself as if he's the smartest person in the room. The word “Jupiterian”—a reference to Jupiter, the Roman king of gods—has been used to describe his hauteur. There's a tone-deaf quality to his leadership, as evidenced by his choice to attend a Celine Dion concert with his wife on the eve of the current street uprisings. Three days later, after the police had shown they hadn't anticipated the emergency, the President took a three-day trip to the Middle East, reinforcing his image as an imperious, impervious leader detached from the public mood.
Among the disgruntled are the nation's civil servants, whose pay raises Macron wants to cap. Perhaps the fact that he’s also cut taxes for the wealthy has exacerbated their hostility. And the President's chief military officer, Pierre de Villiers, has resigned in protest against proposed cuts to military spending. Where monsieur de Villiers expects the money to come from is anyone's guess, like the money some of the street protesters want for their schools. Macron's biggest fiscal failure has been his inability to raise the nation's absurdly low retirement age of 62. Funding pensions for people who should still be working has drained the coffers, as has the government spending 60 percent—the highest in Europe—of its budget on social welfare programs year after year.
France’s young people are discontented, perhaps not yet realizing that their expectations aren't being met because the system was rigged for their grandparents. France's national debt now exceeds its GDP by about 20 percent, and borrowing costs are approaching 24-year highs.
The trappings of power that Macron loves haven't compensated for his loss of public loyalty. The President's left a trail of broken promises. Besides his failed pension reform plan that was suspended in 2020 and never implemented, he built only 32,000 of the 80,000 houses for young people he promised. Despite assuring the nation he'd expel foreigners whose asylum applications were rejected, only 15 percent have been deported. The remaining 85 percent are eligible for state-funded health care. Some are probably joining in on the violence in the streets.
Plenty of French flags have flown in France’s long history of street protests, accompanied by chants of liberté, égalité, fraternité.” The message was, “We’re disrupting the nation to improve it.” But the tricolor red, white, and blue national symbol isn't a part of the current unrest, replaced in many cases by Palestinian flags. That should be a matter of concern to the French people as they witness protesters burning cars, looting stores, throwing stones at the police, burning down historic buildings, and breaking into churches, but never mosques.
The French street protests are no longer about poor conditions in the schools now that Islamo-leftists, pro-Palestinian agitators, communists, antifa, Yellow Vest protesters, and other militant street groups are participating. Either the French government can't control them or doesn't want to. Either option reflects poorly on Macron.
The scary part is how many of the protesters hate France. These misfits have no interest in “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” They'd prefer to tear the nation apart. France is facing a crisis involving loss of national identity. When a nation can no longer agree on what it stands for, or what its people have in common, its status as a nation is threatened. France has opened its doors to many immigrants over the past 70 years, but it's been unable to persuade them that they're part of a common national identity with shared civic obligations and respect for the republic. Emmanuel Macron’s technocratic governance and “transformative vision” did little to address this threat to the survival of his nation. His early promise of “Doing politics differently” is looking hollow now.