Deutsche Welle: Emmanuel Macron, the well-known unknown

In 2017 he claimed a shocking victory. This time things are more difficult. Who is Macron after all? And how did he manage to reach the Elysee Palace?

He entered the courtyard of the Louvre like a young triumphant. It was five years ago and the 40-year-old Macron was celebrating a shocking victory on the night of May 7, 2017 with his fans. The scent of a new beginning was emerging in the night-spring Paris. On the stage was a young reformer, unharmed by the damage usually caused by the course through politics and its institutions.

He wanted to modernize France on his own and bring it into the 21st century. Five years later he is fighting to be re-elected not just for so many others, as he stressed in his pre-election appearance in Marseille, but for another start, for a new contract with the French voters. And that’s harder than he thought, as he admitted.

A patricide and a political conjuncture

After his predecessor, the clumsy François Hollande, Macron seemed on stage as a luminous figure. Elegant, eloquent and with an inexhaustible sense of mission, he embodied hope among European heads of government. His profile and rise were nevertheless typical of the French data. The son of an urban family of doctors from northern France, after graduating from the Sorbonne, he graduated from the renowned School of Public Administration (ENA), where he has been a politician, businessman and leader for decades. In the first years he served in the financial administration, in 2008 he accepted a temporary position as an investment banker to earn money and then returned to the administration.

His rise to power began thanks to François Hollande, who appointed him Minister of Economy in 2014. But a year later Macron left the Socialist Party and the cabinet to establish his own. The root of Macron’s success lies in the “patricide” of his political mentor, François Mitterrand, and in a political situation, in the corruption scandal of the conservative presidential candidate, François Fillon, which destroyed his every chance of electoral success. Macron immediately recognized the positives of the times and seized the opportunity. What made Macron’s case even more special was his marriage to Brigitte’s teacher, a quarter of a century older, but with a bond at a very young age. He is considered his secret adviser.

Never before has the love and marriage of a presidential couple been the subject of so much speculation and gossip. Some observers believe that the unusual mixture contributed to the aura of a different president. When Macron took office, he stepped on the ruins of traditional French parties. After the glorious end of François Hollande, the Socialists’ internal strife led them to self-destruction, while the Conservatives split into the far right and the moderate wing, from which Macron attracted many of his ministers and associates. He occupied the political center in almost all parties without defining an ideological direction. Depending on the mood in the country, the French president turned more to the right or more to the left and at times woke up with the impression that he had no direction at all. But he certainly had visions as well. In his speech at the Sorbonne, which became a milestone, he showed not only his great rhetorical talent, but an unusual look in the long run. He demanded that Europe become autonomous, economically, politically and militarily. In Berlin his message fell on deaf ears. But in the meantime in Brussels is now the prevailing view after the war in Ukraine.

The even hated president

In domestic politics the wind has stopped blowing. As early as the winter of 2018, the protests of the yellow vests interrupted his plans. The demonstrations were triggered by an increase in the price of diesel for environmental reasons. But they quickly escalated into a fight against the president. Macron wanted to modernize the administration, make the country more business-friendly, reform the expensive pension system and much more. But many of these intentions were “drowned” in the demonstrations according to French customs. He did not have time to restore social peace and the coronavirus came. Macron had to appear as a crisis manager, which at first did not go well, but later proved to be more successful. The rate of vaccinations in France is high, hospitals are not flooded with patients and the financial consequences have been absorbed thanks to state aid programs. France’s economic recovery was better than that of its neighbors. The joy, however, did not last long. The war in Ukraine brought first political uncertainty and then rising prices. The majority of French voters are worried about the unbearable cost of living. Immigration and the role of Islam in society, the explosive and divisive issues of recent years have subsided. Despite ridiculous or derogatory remarks about other presidents, such as François Hollande or Nicolas Sarkozy, no other French president has received as much hatred as Macron.

His nickname is “Zeus”. He is considered arrogant and distant, a leader who rules from above. All this does not call into question his re-election, but makes it more difficult than it first seemed. “The reason is not Macron politics,” historian Pierre Rosanvalon told France Inter. “But it has to do with his face, his character. He represents something that causes deep rejection. He exudes an image of distancing, of contempt. But beyond that, he shows that he is not politically down to earth. He lacks the political sense of smell, he is considered a cold technocrat who On the contrary, the huge success of the populist far right shows a divided country and a background of reactionary nationalism and anti-democratic tendencies. regarding the second term: “Watch your wishes”. ”

Barbara Wesel

Edited by: Irini Anastassopoulou

Source: Deutsche Welle