“Emmanuel Macron still has four years left before 2027 and yet, an atmosphere of the end of his reign has already set in”

2023-11-21 05:30:08

Lately, issues have been slipping through the fingers of the President of the Republic as if he no longer really had any control over them.

Boycotted by three party leaders, Eric Ciotti (Les Républicains, LR), Olivier Faure (Socialist Party) and Manuel Bompard (La France insoumise), the meetings in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), which aimed to create consensus around improving the functioning of democratic life, gave birth to a mouse on Friday November 17.

At this stage, only the principle of recognition of voluntary termination of pregnancy in the Constitution appears to be established. The extension of the scope of the referendum, the trivialization of its use which was to represent the bulk of the discussions and to which the Head of State had been open, seem on the other hand buried, for lack of combatants. For six years, however, its opponents have continued to demand the use of direct democracy to counter the “Jupiterian” nature of its decision-making.

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The symbolic weakening of Elysian power can be seen through another recent episode, all the more symptomatic as it concerns the defense of the values ​​of the Republic. By successfully co-organizing the march against anti-Semitism on Sunday, November 12, the two presidents of the assemblies, Yaël Braun-Pivet (Renaissance, Palais-Bourbon) and Gérard Larcher (Senate, LR), both scored a point and embarrassed the Elysée.

Blocked horizon

In the midst of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, while the demonstration was partly taken over by the National Rally and boycotted by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Emmanuel Macron could legitimately wonder if his place was with the demonstrators. Nevertheless, his hesitation for four days, then his refusal to participate, appeared incomprehensible in the eyes of some of his troops: two former presidents of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, had responded without the shadow of a hesitation.

In year two of his second mandate, Emmanuel Macron is overtaken by what his predecessors suffered: the loss of vision. There are still four years before the 2027 deadline and yet an atmosphere of the end of the reign has already set in, as if the horizon was blocked and renewal could only come from someone else.

In July 2005, when he sought to succeed Jacques Chirac, tired by age, illness and ten trying years at the Elysée, Nicolas Sarkozy caricatured him as Louis XVI busy “quietly dismantle the locks at Versailles while France rumbles”.

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