French President Macron began his term of office with ambitious plans. His plans and his political style trigger protests. What are the successes apart from the small and large crises?
He started out as an outsider and wanted to change French politics. Emmanuel Macron put reform proposal after reform proposal on the table full of enthusiasm, but he encountered many obstacles in the implementation and fought against mass protests. After almost five years, he now wants to know it again and is standing for re-election in April. Time to see what successes Macron was able to celebrate during his tenure and what lows he had to overcome. A balance sheet:
Vertical take-off in the Élysée Palace
Macron’s election victory in 2017 was undoubtedly spectacular. He managed to win away from the classic party spectrum, probably also because the left was at loggerheads and the conservative candidate was weakened by a job affair. Five years after starting out in politics, first as an advisor to the then Socialist President François Hollande and then as Minister for Economic Affairs, he made it to the top right away and without the backing of any of the major parties.
Affair about employees causes Macron to stumble
Macron, of all people, who wanted to restore more trust in politics, had to fight an affair about a confidante and employee after just over a year in office, which put the Élysée under massive pressure. Media reports revealed that Macron’s former bodyguard, Alexandre Benalla, who also worked at the Élysée, brutally cracked down on protesters at a demonstration. Benalla has since been sentenced to three years in prison. In the course of dealing with the scandal, other Élysée officials, some of whom were high-ranking, were also targeted by the judiciary. The opposition accused the presidential palace of a cover-up.
“Yellow vest” protests send a clear signal
The images of the devastation on the Parisian boulevard Champs-Élysées went around the world, shocked and forced Macron to act. From autumn 2018, the “yellow vests” initially protested regionally against increased fuel costs, but quickly developed into a mass protest movement against the government’s reform plans, with hundreds of thousands of participants at times. The numbers later fell significantly, but the protests were also aimed specifically at Macron’s political style and noticeably scratched his image.
Macron’s 100 reforms
Hardly a week goes by in which speakers, ministers or state secretaries do not point out that the promises made by the president and the government have been kept. Macron ambitiously put a whole stack of reforms on the table, wanting to turn the job market and the allocation of university places upside down, reduce bureaucracy and make public administration more transparent. According to an overview by the iFrap Foundation, an impressive 103 of the 109 reforms have been implemented so far, but with an average of only 5.2 out of 10 points. The pension reform wanted by Macron, against which there had been protests for weeks, was postponed.
A polarizing President
He had to be slapped, thrown an egg and insulted. Contact between Macron and the French was not always easy. Though he promised a breath of fresh air, some saw Macron as the embodiment of the political elite, ruling far removed from the concerns and needs of the populace. Macron also had to put up with the name “President of the Rich” because of the largely abolished wealth tax and couldn’t really get rid of it. Macron’s governance style, tightly condescending by delegating important issues to the top of the list over the heads of the government, has also done little to paint him a more approachable, sympathetic and less arrogant image.
Small successes instead of triumphant tenure
Very big successes are not associated with Macron. He also reached the limits of his will to reform foreign policy – for example with regard to a new security architecture and financial policy for the European Union. Nevertheless, he made a name for himself as a mediator in the Ukraine crisis, for example, promoted France’s competitiveness, strengthened schools, made adoptions possible for lesbian couples and boosted apprenticeships. In many fields, such as climate protection, experts criticize the fact that there were many warm words but few concrete actions from Macron.
Source: Stern
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