Macron and Popularity: The President of France has yet to win a sceptical public back over to the political process

Photograph: LEWEB 2014 Conference - in conversation with Emmanuel Macron by LE WEB (License) (Cropped)

The victory of Emmanuel Macron attracted the attention and plaudits of centrists across Europe, desperate for a way out of the slump that has undermined social and liberal democratic parties. But the talk in many countries of needing their own Macron and En Marche is all just buying into a myth, because the rise of Macron was an illusion.

Reports this last month talked of Macron and his government already facing a decline in public support. But what those reports ignore is that support was never that high in the first place - the election landslide was more due to the electoral system than a swell of support.

Macron's movement was perhaps well organised or made a particularly well tailored pitch, but En Marche mostly benefited from a system that favours voters' picking their least worst option - which served En Marche who were the heirs of the collapse in the credibility of the centre-left and centre-right.

Macron took just 24% in the full field first round of the Presidential vote, and La Republic En Marche took 32% on a first round legislative election turnout of just 49%. These numbers delivered political power, but not broad public support or high approval. There was no rising wave, just a window of opportunity.

The problem for Macron is not that he has been discredited, but that he has yet to win voters back to the political process. Taking power on the support of a quarter and a fifth, his approval ratings will begin low, with scepticism high and everything to prove.

Turning political power in decent approval ratings was never something that was going to happen overnight. The pledges of Macron were built around big promises with no easy solution, like cleaning up politics.

The difficulties faced by Macron and En Marche were underlined when, within the opening weeks of his new office, his MoDem political allies and their leader Francois Bayrou were hit by corruption investigations.

The other big promise Macron made was to reform France's labour laws, famous for their scale and complexity. It is an issue on which there is a clear public support for action, but no real consensus on what action.

Macron has his own ideas, but has set about a negotiating strategy, rather than trying to force it through. Even trade unions have gotten around the table for talks - with the two of the largest unions even declining to take part in protests against any watering down of labour protections.

While the left under Jean-Luc Melenchon and the union CGT push for protests and strikes, Macron's consensus approach with no legislative surprise has got enough of the key players involved to reduce action to the harder left organisations that media find it easier to discredit.

But the dissatisfaction with politics in France is too broad to be convincingly reduced to the bellyaching of the radical left. And despite the lean times and discrediting of the centre, neither the radical left nor the far right have taken a decisive advantage.

The people of France are not itching to rise up for either extreme, but nor have they fallen back in love with the Republican centre. Macron was never the unquestioned messiah and he has yet to win the public over.

The election results showed all of this. The approval ratings just confirm it. The task ahead of Macron is to rebuild the Republic and he has no gordian solution. A facsimile of Macron in another country would face the same problems.

Macron's ascendency is not the revival that liberals crave, nor are his low approval ratings the death knell of moderate-led reformist capitalism for which socialists are straining their ears. Macron got enough support to get through the door.

But to stay there, Macron and En Marche must win people back to the political process. Sure, his failure to reengage people would be a blow to neoliberals trying to cling to power. But it would be just as bad for progressives of all stripes, for whom public faith in democracy and a politically active and interested people are a cornerstone.

References

Pauline Bock's 'Macron celebrates 100 days in office with historically low approval ratings: He knows whose fault it is... and it's not his'; in the New Statesman; 15 August 2017.

'Top Macron ally Bayrou quits French government'; on the BBC; 21 June 2017.

David Chazan's 'Macron cabinet finalises bill to clean up French politics as corruption investigations swirl'; in The Telegraph; 14 June 2017.

'Macron government launches overhaul of France's labour laws'; on the BBC; 31 August 2017.