permitting. By contrast, Mr Macron’s party, La République En Marche! (LREM), is
unlikely to win a single one, exposing its structural fragility.
One race to watch is that in Hauts-de-France, in the north. The sitting regional president,
Xavier Bertrand, an ex-Republican, will use his re-election bid as a platform to run for
the French presidency in 2022. The space he seeks to occupy is narrow. The centrist Mr
Macron has lured ex-Republicans to his government to shore up centre-right support.
But the president will be closely watching Mr Bertrand, who has cultivated a
fashionably anti-Parisian image from his northern base.
The left’s presidential prospects depend on whether the squabbling Socialists and
Greens can agree on a single candidate. Apart, they will struggle. The Socialist Party is a
shadow of its former self. The Greens are more upbeat, having won several city town
halls in 2020. But their support is skewed towards metropolitan voters. And they will
find it hard to overcome internal quarrels, notably between Yannick Jadot, a national
leader, and Éric Piolle, the eco-radical mayor of Grenoble. Keep a close eye on Anne
Hidalgo, the bicycle-riding Socialist mayor of Paris, who was re-elected with Green
backing. If she decides to run, and can secure national Green support and break out of
her big-city image, Ms Hidalgo could become a serious presidential challenger.
Mr Macron’s potential rivals are desperate to avoid a repeat of the previous presidential
run-off, between him and the far-right Marine Le Pen. But she retains a core nationalist
base, which will be hard to dent. She will play on old fears (migrants) as well as new
ones (covid-19 conspiracies) to stir indignation and distrust of elites. She will promote
her protégés and squash any move to push her niece and rival, Marion Maréchal, back
into politics.
Denounced from all sides, Mr Macron will play a shifting game of political équilibrisme—
balancing left and right, Paris and the regions—to try to destabilise his opponents,
wherever they emerge. He will counter his market-liberal image with spending from a
€100bn ($120bn) stimulus plan, a third of it earmarked for green measures. He will
continue his crackdown on Islamist radicals, while drawing up measures to improve
early education (as well as secular teaching) in the country’s heavily Muslim banlieues.
Unloved in the polls, Mr Macron is often at his best when others write him off.
A turbulent year will be made all the more so when state support is wound down, firms
go under and jobs are lost. In ever-volatile France, social revolt cannot be ruled out. But
while Mr Macron grapples with discontent at home, he will increasingly assert himself
abroad, stepping into the gap that will be left by Angela Merkel’s departure as German
chancellor in the autumn. Plenty of friction looms as the French president seeks to
model Europe into a muscular player in the face of global big-power rivalries and
regional troublemakers, from Turkey and Russia to Libya. Not everybody will
appreciate Mr Macron’s diplomatic activism. But in a post-Brexit, post-Merkel Europe,
leadership will be his for the taking.