Pathless path: In a world of strongmen, a weakened Macron

President Emmanuel Macron of France took his sweet time after the snap parliamentary election last year and waited almost two months to name a prime minister, Michel Barnier, who lasted just three months. He then waited a week to name François Bayrou, whose government collapsed Monday after nine months.

This time, though, he decided on the next prime minister in a little more than 24 hours — ultimately settling on Sébastien Lecornu, a close ally who is the departing defence minister.

This apparent show of resolve is in keeping with late Macron, a leader now in office for more than eight years, with about 18 months left in his presidency. His sometimes brusque determination has intensified as his impatience with domestic politics has grown and his unpopularity has risen. His favourite phrase of late has been: “To be free in this world, you have to be feared. To be feared, you have to be powerful.”

This sombre assessment of a devoted European, a passionate believer in the rule of law and the peace magnet of European integration, reflects Macron’s dismay at the world of strongmen — from Washington to Beijing by way of Moscow — that has hardened during his presidency.

His frustration at a fragmented international sphere of bullies has made for a restive president. He recently called President Vladimir Putin of Russia an “ogre,” drawing a furious response from Moscow. Macron and Putin were once close enough to be in regular contact.

His isolation on an equally fragmented domestic front has also made for a weaker president at an especially critical moment for a democratic France and Europe, as they try to stand up to a global authoritarian drift.

The country’s dire economic situation, forcefully if quixotically underlined by Bayrou, may lead to a downgrade of its sovereign debt rating as early as Friday, when the Fitch ratings agency is to issue a new review of France. A downgrade would mean more costly borrowing, with France already paying more than once crisis-ridden Greece.

For Macron, it appears that there are no good options. Parliament is blocked in a three-way split between the far right of Marine Le Pen, his own battered center, and a shaky alliance of the left and far left, whose most outspoken representative is Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

“Never has Macron been so alienated from the French people nor as contested in the National Assembly,” Alain Duhamel, a prominent author and political scientist, said in an interview. “Each time he loses a prime minister, he is weakened.”

Both Le Pen and Mélenchon, who do not think alike but may act alike, as they did Monday to bring down the government, want Macron’s neck. Mélenchon wants him to quit, precipitating an early presidential election; Le Pen wants to force him to dissolve parliament and call a legislative election that she believes would deliver power to her party.

Twice defeated, and convincingly, by Macron in her presidential bids in 2017 and 2022, Le Pen declared in the National Assembly on Monday that, for the president, “Everything suggests that juridically, politically, even morally, a dissolution is not an option, but an obligation.”

It is not, in fact, an obligation. But if Macron is as committed to French democracy as he has often declared, it is hard to argue with the fact that the country is blocked, even paralysed, and only a parliamentary election would reveal how the electorate wants to overcome the impasse.

A recent study by the IFOP polling institute found that Le Pen’s National Rally and its allies would get about a third of the votes in the first round of snap parliamentary elections, comfortably ahead of other parties, with the potential to be so dominant in the second round of voting that a prime minister from its ranks would become inevitable.

As for Mélenchon, whose support remains significant, he wants to go further. He has called repeatedly for Macron to quit and make way for a presidential election. “We would then have the possibility of changing the Constitution to prevent the abuses of power by a presidential monarchy and the privileged,” Mélenchon told the daily Le Parisien recently.

The leftist leader is seeking a mobilisation of protests that may be galvanised by Macron’s decision to appoint Lecornu, a politician very much from his centrist entourage. In effect, he has made clear that he does not care how much his choices are contested or how he himself is vilified. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic, designed by Charles de Gaulle for himself, allows Macron to do just that.

“If the feeling is Macron just does not listen, it is conceivable we could see some sort of rerun of the yellow vest movement,” Duhamel said, referring to the mass protests by sectors of French society that felt forgotten or ill-used. They began in 2018 and, for a time, brought France to a virtual standstill.

Already, a disparate and nebulous movement called “Bloquons Tout,” or “Let’s Block Everything,” is urging protesters to bring France to a standstill Wednesday. On Sept. 18, labour unions have called for massive work stoppages and protests to express anger over any austerity budget that would penalise lower- and middle-class workers.

France is hard to change and unforgiving of presidents who try. The wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip appear intractable to the point of near insolubility. Macron has attempted to make his mark on all three fronts and forge a better, more prosperous, and peaceful future.

For the moment, however, he finds himself cornered, with no obvious direction in which to turn.

The New York Times