All political careers end in failure but some failures are more prolonged than others. The long goodbye of Emmanuel Macron still has 17 months to run.
He lost all control of parliament 18 month ago but will remain in office, not truly in power, until May of next year.
That would be unfortunate at any time. Macron’s prolonged twilight in the Elysée Palace leaves France without strong leadership at a time of multiple danger: the French deficit crisis; the Ukraine war; Donald Trump’s bullying and erratic re-invention of US imperialism.
Macron said in his end-of-year TV address to the nation that he would “work hard” until the last minute of his presidency. Relatively few people bothered to watch. The media coverage was limited.
Macron has some constitutional powers and legitimacy, even without a majority in parliament, but the country is already looking elsewhere. His approval rating has fallen to 21 percent, its lowest ever – although still short of the 9 percent once plumbed by his predecessor, François Hollande.
Even Macron’s supreme confidence in himself seems to have faltered. The President’s first response on Sunday to America’s kidnapping of the Venezuelan head of state was intended to be careful; it appeared weak.
Most other EU leaders took the same line. It seems that they decided: “Don’t annoy Donald. America’s support on Ukraine, even its half-support – is too important to risk for Venezuela, a country of which we know little”.
That may be acceptable for Britain or Germany but not for France, which has a history of defying the United States when it does stupid things.
Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella managed to “speak for France” at the weekend (hypocritically, given their party’s indulgence of Russian aggression since 2014). Macron blundered, until he lamely changed his tune on Monday.
It is too early to write Macron’s political obituary. He will remain an important figure in European and transatlantic politics in what could be an explosive year. To his credit, he has been one of the most forthright EU leaders in warning Trump to keep his hands off Greenland.
It is not too early, however, to ask: Who is Emmanuel Macron? Is he a misunderstood visionary, someone that the French will come to value in the years ahead? Or was he an imposter all along?
Seven years ago, Emmanuel Macron promised to lead France to a promised land beyond the sterile alternation of Left and Right. He has taken France into a political quicksand with no secure government, an exploding budget deficit and €3.4 trillion in accumulated debt.
A book published this week says that Macron’s greatest fault is a form of narcissism - a failure to listen to his allies and a refusal to learn the lessons of his own unpopularity. The book, Néron à L’Elysée by Nicolas Domenach and Maurice Szafran, suggests that like the Roman emperor, Nero, Macron persisted in playing his own tunes while the country burned.
It makes a persuasive case by leaving out part of the evidence. Yes, Macron has alienated almost all the senior politicians he has worked with. Yes, he has failed to create a lasting centrist movement. Yes, he has failed to find and cherish a successor.
Yes, he took a stupid decision to dissolve the National Assembly in June 2024 when it was clear that it would weaken, not strengthen, his already minority, centrist alliance in parliament.
The book leaves out, or underplays, the partial success of Macronomics. He reduced unemployment from over 10 percent to around 7.5 percent and the figure has not risen again as rapidly as many feared since the post-Ukraine economic crisis. French inflation is the lowest in the EU; growth is limp but stronger than Germany; foreign investment in France remains the highest in Europe.
The book also skims over the extraordinary succession of crises faced by Macron – from the yellow vests to Covid to the Ukraine war and now Donald Trumps’s assault on the transatlantic and world order. The authors also give little credit to Macron for his foresight in preaching the need seven years ago for a drive towards European military and economic “autonomy” or “sovereignty” to prevent domination by China or Russia and bullying by the United States.
The book gives little credit to Macron’s strong role (after some zig-zags) in marshalling European support for Ukraine. That culminated in an agreement this week on US logistical and intelligence support for token French and British forces in Ukraine if – a big if – Russia agrees a ceasefire.
Only four years ago, Macron became the first President of the Fifth Republic since Charles De Gaulle to be re-elected without first losing power in a parliamentary election. Instead, he lost his grip on power just afterwards by failing to win a majority in the June 2022 Assembly elections.
He would have won those elections easily if he had not campaigned for a modest but necessary increase in the French retirement age - something that he later imposed, dynamiting what remained of his popularity.
Macron’s failure is, in part, France’s failure. Far from fiddling while France burned, he took the country at its word. The French claimed that they wanted radical “change”. They set the country alight rather than accept the painful changes needed to survive or thrive in an increasingly hostile world.
Macron promised in 2017 that he was the only man who could save France from the destructive populism of the Far Right. Now he seems doomed to hand over the Elysée to Le Pen or Bardella.
Can he still redeem himself? One man might help him - Donald Trump.
Macron’s efforts to appease Trump have not been a complete failure. They have helped to keep the US from dumping Ukraine. A bigger test is coming.
If the US President persists with mafia-like threats to annexe Greenland, it will be time for Macron to discover his inner De Gaulle. He should honour his government’s previous offer to Copenhagen and send a tripwire of French troops to Nato’s northern flank.
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