At the Elysée, in the office of Frédéric Michel, strategy and communications advisor to the president, copies of Der Spiegel pile up. Nothing surprising in this, since it is reading prestigious foreign newspapers which, these days, brings the most comfort to the executive. Latest example: Janan Ganesh, star columnist for Financial Timesthe leading economic daily in Europe, has just appointed Emmanuel Macron as “politician of the year”. Even if, he quips, the choice in this area turned out to be as limited as the 2012 Oscars (which, for lack of a better term, had crowned The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius).
The reason for this praise: pension reform. In France, this remains associated with a huge popular revolt and the most significant demonstrations since May 1968. “Most presidents would have abandoned or softened the reform. This one did not do it. The result? Bitterness persistent, but also public finances a little more tenable”, underlines the British journalist Janan Ganesh.
According to this specialist in international politics, this obstinacy of Emmanuel Macron against the dominant opinion in his country can be compared to great historical precedents. “Since Angela Merkel’s open door to refugees or even Margaret Thatcher’s confrontation with the mining unions, I do not remember a manifestation of the will of the executive comparable to its retirement plan. It goes from par with Macron’s life, whose central motif has been resistance to external pressures, whether renouncing his partner or working within the traditional party system of the Fifth Republic. Western leaders need a little of that stubbornness.”
As public debts reach worrying levels and Western countries experience rapid aging, Janan Ganesh believes that voters are not ready to face these major challenges. To what extent can a welfare state still support citizens in a world where living to 100 is no longer exceptional? “The real problem is that voters cannot stand the truth. In 2017, Theresa May, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, asked citizens to contribute more to the costs of end-of-life care. She did not never recovered from this impertinence. In the United States, Republicans paid a heavier electoral price by calling into question federal benefits than by continuing to support Donald Trump, despite being twice impeached. Compare their victory under Trump’s leadership in 2016 with their defeat under the leadership of the more decent but austere Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan four years earlier.
Raising taxes is almost as incendiary a move. The current British government, which did so, is on the verge of being crushed in the next elections (the Labor opposition, realizing this, excludes all tax increases, and not just those affecting low or middle wages ). The yellow vests during Macron’s first term were unhappy with fuel taxes, remember. If voters seem to want it both ways – a welfare state but not a proportional tax burden – the truth is worse than that. There is a third front to their (our) intransigence. Immigration, which can improve the ratio of working people to the elderly, and therefore the tax situation, is also incredibly unpopular.
This is not the first time this year that major international newspapers have paid tribute to Emmanuel Macron. End of July, The Economist hailed France’s “hidden successes”, despite record social spending or a revolutionary mentality. Then, in September, the columnist of Spiegel Michael Sauga believed that “France is Germany but better”, comparing Macron to the reformist Gerhard Schröder of the early 2000s. “At the time, in Germany, it was also said that Schröder was arrogant, that he had lost the link with its population, which it did not know how to communicate about its reforms. The reactions were the same as today in France” the German journalist confided to us. Even recently, The Economist explained why German bosses “praise” France. “German bosses, frustrated by the dysfunctional tripartite coalition in power, look admiringly at the French government, which prioritizes business, courts leaders and offensively promotes France as a place of investment and innovation” assured the liberal weekly. There is no doubt that at the Élysée, we will very quickly collect copies of The Economist and FT.