A brooding Emmanuel Macron is what the world saw last week in the front pages of elite newspapers. Expectedly, the very French who gave him another chance at running the country has curtly, and prudishly, denied him a majority in the National Assembly. In a momentous first in 30 years, this debacle the voters have landed Macron into, will find him scratching around for votes to get things done. This proves harder than said. As unsurprising as it is, in opinion polls conducted in France before the election on 19th June, Macron did not rate favourably among his countrymen. He is often called the President for the rich, always seen harping on tax-cut and pro-business policies, much to the resentment of the ordinary French. Bakers on the streets selling croissants and toasts, were much eager to let the far-Rightist Marie Le pen call the shots in the first round of Presidential elections. Alas, for this unpopular President, about whom almost everybody in the lower and middle classes take an uncharitable view, the political reality couldn’t have been harsher. To win the heart of the populace, a Macronian course-correction is needed. A welfarist orientation (?) is on the cards. But what is more cruel is that the country simply does not have the money.
Much to the elated declamations on the productivity of the elderly vis-a-vis the restless young, much of France would rather like to have their retirement ages lowered than pulled up. Jean-Luc-Melechon of the radical left is another favourite of a section of voters who feel isolated from the mainstream prosperity race that France seems to caught in, with Macron leading the way. Not all of France is as glitzy and flamboyant as tourist guides want to make it seem.
The institution of French presidency, as its monarchical history reveals, gives him enough powers to push through reforms in the face of oppositional unrest. But that would him make him deeply unpopular, adding more fuel to the fire. He will have to change his style, become more accommodative, pragmatic and analytic in his approach, and appeal to particular parities on either side of the opposition to help get things through. For instance, he could, if negotiations are hammered out persuasively, count on the Greens to pass the much-vaunted (and much-needed) energy transition bills. Again, this too is easier said than done. It all depends on how Macron realigns his politics of authority, often overstepping blunt secularism, to concede space to divergent opinions.
As we saw in Germany, where the political parties constitutive of the traffic light coalition, the Social Democratic Party, the Free Democratic Party, and the Greens, had to deliberate for months to form a constructive government, France too is a victim of a similar tradition. France, to the glee of Europe, yearns to be looked upon as a major European power. Especially with the exit of Angela Merkel, that role seems to have shifted on to Emmanuel Macron. If Macron fails to do his job right, given the troublesome French (and largely European or Nordic) tradition, as hesitant as it is in knocking around with partners (not to mention the “Swedes don’t invite kids over dinner” row), his days at the office will be numbered, and a “Viva la France!” will struggle to see the light of the day.
The Unsaturated Reader 