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“Notre-Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so,” said the President-elect Donald J. Trump this week, as he confirmed that he would be honoring Emmanuel Macron with his presence for the big reopening of France’s most famous cathedral on Saturday. “It will be a very special day for all!”
Just like Trump, Macron relishes such stately occasions, and it would be churlish to deny him credit for Notre-Dame’s impressive reconstruction following the devastating fire that shocked the world in 2019. Paul McCartney has reportedly been given an “exceptional authorization” to sing “Imagine” within the sacred walls, while the rapper Pharrell Williams will perform outside.
Victor Hugo noted: “On the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals, by the side of a wrinkle, one always finds a scar.” While Notre-Dame may have risen from the ashes, Macron’s government is a smoldering ruin. Macron once compared himself to Jupiter; now he more resembles Ozymandias.
The French president is reported to be depressed, disagreeable with colleagues, sulking in his palace
He is the author of his own despair. He was never loved, had made numerous unforced errors, but he was until June at least indisputably in charge, with a relative majority in the national assembly, a renewed mandate of his own in 2022, some pension reforms successfully implemented by decree. France seemed buzzy, a country open for business.
But then he threw it all away when he made the irrational bet that he could see off the resurgent Marine Le Pen, whose party had just won the European parliament elections. He should have ignored her.
Lyndon Johnson said the first lesson of politics is to learn to count, and Macron, the supposed Mozart of finance, proved himself innumerate. Le Pen didn’t win a majority in the subsequent national assembly elections but she did win 11 million votes and 143 seats — a Rassemblement National record. In Britain, with the same vote share, she would have won a huge parliamentary majority. Although in a minority, she has nevertheless demonstrated her power over Michel Barnier — and, implicitly, Macron himself.
Although Macron has been quoted channelling Edith Piaf, claiming that he regrets nothing, this is surely bravado. He is reported to be depressed, disagreeable with colleagues, often sulking in his palace, emerging only for photo opportunities, preferably abroad. As his government struggled to survive this week, he flew to Riyadh for a state visit, after claiming credit (improbably) for brokering the Lebanon ceasefire. He’s now looking for a new prime minister, his sixth.
Barnier’s ministry survived for twelve weeks before colliding with the reality of mathematics. Even though Barnier is supposed to be a master negotiator — questionable, given the mutually destructive EU-UK Brexit agreement — he couldn’t talk his way out of the fundamental problem that he hadn’t the votes in the assembly to pass his budget, raising taxes and cutting expenditure, even after granting numerous concessions to Le Pen. His minority government duly collapsed.
We may not quite have seen the back of Barnier. He and his ministers could remain in place as a technical government with no legislative mandate, pending replacement. And since there’s no immediate likelihood of cobbling together a new government or coalition, that could be some time.
In the meantime the financial markets are spooked, though not yet panicking. Mighty France is paying similar interest rates to Greece. Why can’t the French live within their means? The French have some of the highest taxes in the OECD, yet spend even more. It’s a French version of dine and dash. After the binge, borrow the money to pay the bill.
Countries have got along without governments before but France is in an especially delicate position. It is crippled by a 6 percent fiscal deficit amounting to debt worth 112 percent of GDP — not just imprudent but a violation of EU rules. The budget that would have raised taxes and cut expenses is not simply a technical exercise in paying teachers and keeping on the lights. It was meant to prove to the world that France has a serious government. That proof remains undelivered.
Macron looks like the lamest of ducks but still has possible moves. An extreme scenario has him responding to the collapse of the government and the impossibility of creating a new one by seizing power under Article 16 of the constitution, allowing presidential rule by decree in the event of a grave and immediate threat to the Republic. This would be the first presidential rule by decree since that of Charles de Gaulle in 1961 during the Algerian war of independence. Is it credible that Macron might attempt this — a final throw of the dice? He has a reputation for risk-taking, so it’s not impossible.
Or could he resign, as is demanded by the left? He’s put the country into a slough of despond. Perhaps resignation might be honorable, but it’s hard to see how it solves any problems and it could even make matters worse. This makes it even less likely than a triggering of Article 16.
With Macron unable to run again, and likely to remain in place until the next presidential election in April 2027, who might be his successor? This is now the subject of obsession in the political salons.
Ironically, since Macron’s intention had been to neutralize her, Le Pen, fifty-six, is the current frontrunner to replace him in 2027. This will be her fourth go at the presidency. There’s no doubting her resilience. Her hobby is breeding Bengal cats, an especially strong-willed and aggressive breed, reflective of her own character. Her politics are populist but hardly extreme right. She’s Euroskeptical and wants to tame Brussels, but has ditched her idea of exiting the euro. She’s an economic nationalist, essentially a Poujadiste with leftish economic policies. She proposes a stronger government approach to immigration, integration and crime — all popular causes with the electorate.
Le Pen has dumped or sidelined all the fascists from her party, expelled her notorious father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is in any case gravely ill, and tacked so sharply to the center that some of her supporters are muttering that she has sold out. The party has rebranded from the “National Front” founded by papa to the more inclusive “National Rally.” She’s a lawyer and resilient politician but has no real government experience. Can she really execute a program? She will not find many friends in le conglomérat — the French Blob.
The big “but” is that in 2027 Le Pen could be in jail and disqualified from office, for alleged embezzlement by paying party functionaries from European Parliament budgets. The trial ended last week. The judges will rule on guilt and penalty in March, but this could run and run. The maximum sanction is three years in prison and disqualification from public office.
Then there’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon, loosely a French version of Bernie Sanders, although angrier, a rabble rouser given to epic tantrums. There’s a video of him squaring up to a policeman in 2018, screaming: “I am the Republic. I’m a politician. Get out of my way.” He was given a three-month suspended sentence for his behavior.
Mélenchon, seventy-three, is chummy with numerous extreme leftists, wokeists, transgenderists, greenies and Islamo-gauchistes. He has a hatred of NATO and his economic policy is Venezuelan. He talks of a 90 percent tax rate, of lowering the retirement age, of exit taxes on the fortunate trying to leave. He’s reportedly a millionaire and wears a bespoke Mao jacket. His portmanteau political movement France Insoumise has seventy-one deputies (of 577) in the national assembly, including a member of Antifa on an antiterrorist watch list.
Mélenchon ran for president of France in 2012, 2017 and 2022. In 2012 he finished fourth in the first round, with 11 percent of the vote. In 2017 he was third, with 20 percent. In 2022 he again placed third, with 22 percent. In a crowded field, that might be enough to make it to round two. In 2017, Le Pen made it to the second round with less. This, given the variable geometry of the first round in a French presidential election, could mean she could face Mélenchon in the decisive second round. The revolutionary vs the cat lady. In this startling scenario, Le Pen would probably win. The French won’t buy what Mélenchon is selling. It would send the bond markets into a death spiral.
There are also centrist and moderate rightists who might present themselves to the electorate. Édouard Philippe, a former Macron prime minister; Bruno Retailleau, the tough-talking Barnier interior minister; the perennial François Bayrou, mayor of Pau. Even the former socialist president François Hollande is mulling a comeback.
On the Île de la Cité in Paris, where private groups are being given tours of Notre-Dame before the formal reopening this weekend, there are some arguments over the aesthetics of the restoration, but mainly there’s awe at the luminosity and craft. There have also been rude social media insults directed at the president, who has not been shy in taking credit. Macron promised to save Notre-Dame, and he delivered. It’s a monument to himself. His presidency, not so much.
