“More unpopular than ever, Emmanuel Macron is preparing for an interminable and painful end to his reign”

MWednesday October 30, while Emmanuel Macron was received in majesty in Rabat by the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, a Verian-Epoka poll was published by Le Figarorecording a spectacular drop in the popularity rating (17%) of the President of the Republic, lower than at the time of the “yellow vest” crisis. More unpopular than ever, Mr. Macron is preparing for an interminable and painful end to his reign.

However, since its failed dissolution of the National Assembly, which acts like a slow poison, everything seems to escape him. The president finds himself faced with a triple challenge: existing in the face of his prime minister, who is beginning to make his mark; to be forgiven by his former majority, whom he traumatized by deciding to dissolve the Assembly; reconnect with the French, while preserving a balance sheet which risks being obscured by the debt, which has increased by almost 1,000 billion euros since 2017.

For the moment, he fumbles, appearing strangely absent, as if beside himself. Four months after his defeat in the legislative elections, he has no other choice than to withdraw and retreat onto the international scene. On the domestic scene, Mr. Macron is caught between two fires: on the one hand, he needs Michel Barnier, the prime minister, to succeed, because his failure would put the president under pressure; on the other, he is annoyed by his budgetary choices and has difficulty supporting the fact that the light has been turned away from the Elysée, in favor of Matignon.

Less in touch with government affairs, the head of state counterattacks discreetly. To all his interlocutors he affirms that this government is not “not the [s]ien »forgetting that his political family occupies half of the ministerial positions. And he does not miss an opportunity to make his difference heard, directly or by proxy, giving the feeling of playing against the government. One day, he did not discourage his former minister, when Gérald Darmanin heard criticizing Michel Barnier's tax choices. Another, he encourages one of his lawyer friends to speak out on the rule of law, to counter the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, whose right-wing orientations he says he disapproves of. And, on October 25, in front of an audience of businesses gathered at the Elysée, he publicly became annoyed “tax increases and labor costs that weigh on businesses”.

To be forgiven

If he is looking for how to exist in the face of Mr. Barnier, Mr. Macron is also trying to be forgiven by the parliamentarians of his former majority, through lunches organized at the Elysée. But the dissolution, misunderstood and rejected, left deep traces. And the deputies from his camp who survived the July 7 vote no longer feel connected. Abandoned by his own people, the president retreats to his last group of faithful. The 1^is October, as revealed Le Figarohe invited his old traveling companions to dinner, at the origin of En marche!, Richard Ferrand, Philippe Grangeon, Stanislas Guerini and Julien Denormandie, to discuss the unity, identity and future of his family politics – because“he doesn’t want it to go out”summarizes one of them.

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