The Economist July 10th 2021 Europe 51Thesurreptitious socialist
T
he tone was sharp. Both hands were thumped testily on the
table. The water glass trembled. “We’re putting a mad amount
of dosh into social benefits!” cried Emmanuel Macron, sitting
with his advisers upon silkupholstered chairs in the Elysée pal
ace. The video, posted unapologetically by an aide, went viral. This
was in 2018, only a year into his presidency, and confirmed what
many of the French already suspected. Their new president—a for
mer investment banker, who scrapped the wealth tax and picked
one (and later another) centreright prime minister—was a right
leaning liberal who secretly sought to reward the rich and demol
ish the modèle social, France’s cradletograve welfare state.
The image endures. The president is still linked in the French
mind to looser labour laws, an end to special pension rights for
railway workers, and the longest strikes since 1968. In protest at
his proposed (and later shelved) general pension reform, these
seemed to bring France to a standstill, just weeks before the pan
demic really did. Tough laws on security and Islamist extremism
appeared to confirm a shift to the right. Today Mr Macron is mut
tering again about tightening pension rules to keep the French at
their desks until later in life. France, a land of slow dining and
swift indignation, is bracing itself for the worst. To revive pension
reform now, said Laurent Berger, a (moderate) union leader, would
be “totally crazy politically” and “socially explosive”.
But what if, for a moment, the conceptually minded French
were to set aside the boxes into which they so eagerly confine their
politicians and take a closer look at what has also been going on?
Those on the left who think the president has shamelessly be
trayed all their ideals may find the evidence challenging. For Mr
Macron has turned into something of a closet socialist.
The most visible evidence of the president channelling his in
ner Mitterrand is to be found in his new relationship with the pub
lic purse. When the pandemic struck, Mr Macron borrowed a turn
of phrase from Mario Draghi, vowing to spend “quoi qu’il en coûte
(whatever it costs)” to fight it. Since then he has, in his own words,
“nationalised” wages and firms’ operating accounts, spending ten
times more last year to keep firms and furloughed workers going
than France ever earned in a year from the old wealth tax.
Macronian handouts have proliferated: €300 ($354) for 18year
olds to spend on “culture”; an extra €150 for those on benefits; up
to €650 a month more for health workers; university meals capped
at €1; free breakfasts at schools in deprived areas; free sanitary pro
ducts for female students; an extra €100 a month for retired low
income farmers—a proposal, incidentally, from none other than
the Communists. “We’re catapulting billions” of public money all
over the place, declared Adrien Quatennens, a hardleft deputy, as
if unable to decide whether to applaud or disapprove.
None of this, of course, is unique to France. Joe Biden’s stimu
lus plan dwarfs Mr Macron’s. Yet, before the pandemic, France was
not only more generous and better at correcting inequality than
America (not difficult). As a share of gdpit also outspent all the
Nordic countries on social programmes (a lot harder). Mr Macron,
in other words, has succeeded in expanding an already highly so
cialised economy—and in doing so pushed France’s publicdebt
levels way above the current high European Union average.
Less noticed is a growing corpus of progressive rights and rules
Mr Macron has also introduced: a doubling of guaranteed paterni
ty leave to four weeks as of this month, with one week compuls
ory; fines for firms that fail to close the gender pay gap; the right
for gay women to free fertility treatment, a historic first for France.
Abroad, Mr Macron is often judged a solo provocateur, out to
impose France’s views while claiming to speak for Europe. Less
well known is his Gordon Brownlike record of championing pro
gressive multilateral causes, including those now credited to Mr
Biden, from a global minimum corporatetax rate (a Macron
pledge in 2017) to vaccines for Africa. “Coming from the left,” says
Clément Beaune, his Europe minister, “I don’t have any sense at all
that he has betrayed the socialdemocratic tendency.”
Why, if this is true, does none of it alter judgments of Mr Mac
ron’s politics? The answer may lie in what psychologists call cog
nitive dissonance. The president is an elite, taxcutting exbanker
who recruits from the right; ergo, he cannot also be a lefty. Contra
dictory evidence confuses. In his wellcut suits and shiny leather
shoes, Mr Macron simply looks an improbable defender of the
downtrodden. When, in full presidential dress, he turned up to an
online youth video studio and talked about the need to combat
“menstrual precarity” among the homeless, viewers were dumb
struck. Was this the same president who rejects woke culture, and
once haughtily told a gardener to just “cross the road” to find a job? Centre of attention
Perhaps such dissonance is what Mr Macron seeks. Ahead of the
presidential vote in 2022, France’s centre of political gravity has
shifted to the right. This, not the left, is where his toughest compe
tition will come from. Mr Macron’s nod to the left is studiously
mild by French classwarrior standards, and in line with his intel
lectual roots. If anything he is reconnecting not with Mitterrand
but Michel Rocard, the Socialist expresident’s centreleft prime
minister and a mentor (among many) to the younger Mr Macron.
If Mr Macron gets no credit for progressive policies, this may
also be intrinsic to his project. Vowing to be “neither on the left
nor the right”, he is forever caught between inflated expectations
on both sides and inbuilt dissatisfaction at the compromises prag
matic politics impose. Such is the lot of the radical centrist. Yet the
contradictions may also quite suit a country that thinks it prizes
theoretical purity, but is actually often happy to live with messy
compromise. Unappreciated progressive, imperfectliberal, im
plausible conservative: Mr Macron’s policy mix maywork well
enough in practice, even if not in theory. Vive la France!nCharlemagne
Emmanuel Macron’s quiet embrace of big government