‘Symbolic power: What’s the point of Macron, or the centre, if they give everything away?’

Campaigning on a platform of bold reform in 2017, is Emmanuel Macron now vying for “symbolic power” in the Autumn of his presidency, asks Renaud Foucault, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Lancaster University. Mr. Foucault asserts that the French president will likely steer clear of snap elections and simply “kick the can down the road” to keep the far right at bay until 2027. Mr. Foucault says he’s “puzzled” by the president’s Groundhog Day strategy: Naming a slew of centre-right prime ministers, whose parties garnered the smallest share in parliament. “Macron seems to be trying the same thing again and again and again. And now, the word on the street: maybe he’ll bring back Jean-Louis Borloo”! In 2017–2018, President Macron solicited Jean‑Louis Borloo to prepare a major “plan banlieue” report for the Greater Paris suburbs (164 pages, 19 proposals) on social inclusion, urban renewal, and a national reconciliation agenda. Macron ceremonially snubbed Borloo in very public fashion. And now, Mr. Foucault says Macron is “ready to humiliate him again: ‘oh, you can take Matignon’. And you know what? He will be in a position of doing absolutely nothing”. It has all the makings of a veritable Greek tragedy à la française: is Macron just “giving the keys of the country” to Bardella and the far right?