Emmanuel Macron likes to defy the laws of History, elected president at an unprecedented age at the end of an unprecedented journey. Now he is more than ever stuck in the curse of second mandates from which none of his predecessors escaped, whether they are Charles de Gaulle, out by a referendum, François Mitterrand, crushed in legislative elections, or Jacques Chirac , humiliated in another referendum, this one with European consequences. The current five-year term, vitiated from the first month, because of a legislative majority too narrow to be engaging, vitiated from the very first day, because of a campaign too vague to be strong, calls into question what is the very essence of macronism.
If it does not want to be a simple, albeit brilliant parenthesis of the Fifth Republic, it must remain faithful to its identity: on the move, said Emmanuel Macron at the start of his adventure, it was his trademark, his reason for be. Immobility would therefore be its shroud. The president has certainly not given up agitating French conservatism, but his words are no longer magical after seven years in power. His record, on public accounts for example, and on authority too, has become his burden.
We understand well why the head of state strives not to fall to the side he leans, that is to say to the right. Concluding an alliance with part of the Republicans would mean renouncing “at the same time”, and therefore giving a slap in the face to original Macronism. But immobility, certainly not in words but in results, is another. Can Europe, the re-enchanted dream of his 2017 campaign, allow him to find a little air again, or will the elections of June 9, over which such a strong wind of populism is blowing, on the contrary come to sound the death knell? of the epic?
The stakes are not small when it comes to a mandate that is unlike any other for a unique reason. This five-year term is two years old, Le Pen is already making a breakthrough under Macron. The candidate of the National Rally was the head of state’s stepping stone and then his life insurance; it could not be its extension. The threat of his victory should be the safeguard of presidential action, beyond the postures that too often accompany it. Since it is a question of History, obviously, on this subject, it concerns Emmanuel Macron. She will be merciless.