The Jupiterian president has lost some of his stature since his election. He no longer rules heaven and earth. Nicolas Sarkozy announces it without nuance: “It will end very badly” for him.
“The president is still in deep shit. It’s going to end very badly” Nicolas Sarkozy repeats to his entourage (according to the magazine people Gala). And it is a fine connoisseur of the presidential function who says so!
The time when Jupiter reigned as absolute master over Olympus is long gone. At the time of his election in May 2017, the God of the gods wanted to break with the “normal” presidency of François Hollande. He wanted to incarnate a strong power. Vertical.
It was almost three years ago, on the day of his investiture, this dashing young man of 39 years old was walking up the Champs-Elysées on an army commando-bus. He made his speech at the Louvre, in front of the pyramid, after a solitary three-minute walk. The music is Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Symbols of almighty power. On the eve of July 14, in the face of the military challenging the budgetary restrictions, Emmanuel Macron said: “I am your leader”. Dismissed!
Old men on a date
He was young, he was handsome, he embodied the new world. He was the hyper-connected youth, who spoke English, who came out of the great schools, who broke with the old cultural, sexual and dress codes. The golden boys of international finance, start-ups capable of building fortunes in a short time and forging destinies in a few months.
Emmanuel Macron prepared his business in the secrecy of Bercy. Then, during an election campaign, all the old men in politics were put out to pasture. No more right-left cleavage, no more old-fashioned political parties. No more UMP, no more PS. Old things from another age. It’s time for the Republic On The Move.
Swollen with pride and complacency, Emmanuel Macron intends to succeed where all others have failed. He wants to reform the country. With a cane. The reform of the Labor Code will give rise to the first outbreak of social fever.
“Let them come and get me”
From the top of Olympus, Jupiter can’t see the French, he can’t hear their suffering. The Minister of Action and Public Accounts, Gérald Darmanin, notes the divorce between the people and the elites. He will say it in his own way: “There is probably a lack around him [Emmanuel Macron] of people who speak to the popular France, people who drink beer and eat with their fingers. »
On 1 May 2018, there are clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement officials on the fringes of the parade. The Benalla affair made headlines and shook the Elysée Palace. Macron, annoyed, is provocative: “The only person responsible is me, let them come and get me”.
It’s not the opposition that’s going to get him, it’s the yellow jackets. The protest is organized around roundabouts from November 17, 2018. France from below, that of the 9 million poor, that of the rural areas, of the forgotten, will howl its anger. It will demonstrate every Saturday and will also break some symbols of the Republic. The cops will retaliate. 3,000 injured among the demonstrators, 152 serious, 17 dazed, four hands ripped off.
“We’re here, we’re here… »
To make a difference, the government is engaging in a major national debate. The President himself begins a tour de France to explain his policy. Fourteen debates, more than 100 hours of blabla. An interminable logorrhoea in front of elected representatives and hand-picked personalities. This verbal diarrhoea broadcast live on the major TV channels annoys everyone.
Neither big speeches nor big cheques will be able to calm the yellow jackets. “We’re here, we’re here, even if Macron doesn’t want us to…” (familiar tune).
It is in this insurgent climate that the reform of the pension system was launched. A hastily drafted text supervised by Jean-Paul Delevoye, who was forced to resign on 17 December 2019 for failing to declare to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) thirteen of his mandates, some of which were remunerated. The height of cynicism.
Offence of blasphemy
Trains and subways don’t work anymore. Strikes and demonstrations follow one another. Lawyers and doctors are in the streets. The Republic is on the move, France is at a standstill. To top it all off, the Council of State denounces the “incomplete projections” of the text, whose “legal security” it cannot guarantee. Jupiter does not yield anything. Less than two months before the municipal elections, things are getting worse. Cédric Villani refuses to yield to the president’s injunctions. No question of joining Benjamin Griveaux.
Then came a series of blunders, polemics and misunderstandings. The circular Castaner on the “political nuance” in the elections is retooled by the Council of State. Then comes the Mila affair, named after the 16-year-old girl threatened with death for having criticized Islam. The Keeper of the Seals, Nicole Belloubet, distinguished herself by believing that “an insult to religion is an attack on freedom of conscience”. The return of the crime of blasphemy?
Macron himself creates the polemic by displaying himself with the cartoonist Jul holding a T-shirt where we see a cat with its eyes out and the words “LBD 2020”. The policemen appreciate it.
At the end of a spade
But the worst thing is this whole thing about time off after losing a child. The majority MPs, following the government’s advice, rejected a UDI-Agir proposal to increase parental leave from 5 to 12 days. General outcry. Macron called on the government to “show humanity”. The government reversed its decision. The LREM MPs look like idiots. Or godillots.
At the beginning of the year 2020 and on the eve of elections, the whole Macronie is weakened. France is in tatters.
Jupiter has fallen from Olympus. A majority of French people (66%) now reject this haughty and authoritarian monarch whose portrait, printed in Louis XVI, is carried on the end of a pike.
It is probably Sarkozy who is right. The president is in trouble. It will end badly for him. And he knows it.