turns to the growing national clivage — the
societal “fracture”, as Chirac used to call it.
From the back of the car, David Madec,
administrator of the Panthéon, recalls the
solemn, pomp-filled ceremony Macron
presided over in November when Josephine
Baker, the stage performer, civil rights
campaigner and wartime resistance hero,
became the first black woman to be interred
in the mausoleum.
“What was extraordinary was the number
of vicious, hate-filled messages we got from
people opposed to the idea,” he says. Darel
chips in: “The hostility against Macron is
incredible.” A recent book, Macron, W hy So
Much Hatred? by Nicolas Domenach and
Maurice Szafran, claims that no leader has
attracted such acrimony since Louis XIV
was executed by guillotine in 1793.W
e take our seats at La Rotonde,
whose heritage goes back to
Picasso and Modigliani — the
latter used to pay for meals with
his paintings. Now replicas hang
on the walls. Today’s most famous
regular is Macron. La Rotonde is where he
celebrated his victory in the first round of
the election in 2017. Since then, I learn,
there have been two attempts to burn the
place down, apparently because of the
association with him.
The president, who likes the oysters,
often used to turn up at the restaurant years
ago as a young economics minister with his
British counterpart, George Osborne. Since
he entered the Élysée, relations with Britain
have soured over Brexit: the fiercely
pro-European French president criticisedthe AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and on one
occasion called Boris Johnson a “clown”
in a private conversation with advisers.
British officials are just as scathing about
the Frenchman, one recently describing
Macron to me as a “scaly-legged narcissist”.
So much for the entente cordiale.
Will winning a second term make him
any more successful at healing France’s
divisions or managing better relations with
Britain? He has expressed regret for his
high-handed, top-down leadership style,
promising, if given a second chance, more
widespread consultation. Already, he likes
to boast, the rate of unemployment is at
its lowest level in 15 years. He is promising
to achieve full employment in his next term
if the electorate allow him the opportunity.
In a gesture likely to warm Brigitte’s
heart, he is also promising to reform the
education system, rewarding teachers more
fairly for their work. For healing the societal
rift, he proposes a “Republican pact” —
details are, as yet, sketchy.
One of the most remarkable features
of his re-election campaign, though, is a
pledge to push ahead with a reform of the
pension system and raise the retirement
age from 62 to 65 — the very reforms that
have been abandoned by one government
after another over the past two decades
because of prolonged protests and strikes.
“He does not avoid difficult subjects,”
Darel says. Dusapin agrees: “To raise this
subject in the middle of an election
campaign is very courageous.” For him,
there is no alternative to Macron. “He
supports the humanist and republican
values that we share.”For some analysts, though, France needs
a lot more. Koenig, the philosopher, 39,
wants a new constitution, an end to the
quasi-monarchy allowing Macron so many
powers. “Britain has gone from Thatcher
to Blair to Brexit — big changes,” he says.
France, by contrast, is immobile. “In France,
it is all about the relationship of one man
and the people. One man is supposed to
know everything and solve everything, even
the potholes on village streets. People don’t
go to their representatives to complain
about things. They take to the streets.”
Koenig rode a horse around the country
in 2020 in order to gauge the popular mood
ahead of his own presidential campaign.
In the end he did not win enough
endorsements from mayors to continue his
quixotic quest for the throne. But what he
discovered on his equine odyssey — besides
how to change a horseshoe — was disquiet
with a paternalistic, monarchical system run
from Paris and, as the TV presenter Pernaut
had himself warned years before his death,
a growing sense of alienation in la France
profonde, the hinterland, which feels
scorned by the Parisian elite.
Although Macron is almost certain to
be re-elected, Koenig thinks the next
revolution is coming. “The country is
reaching breaking point,” he says. “People
don’t feel they are in command of their
own destiny. They feel they’re not allowed
to do anything, even repair a village roof,
without it going all the way up the chain
to Paris.” His journey through France left
him deeply uneasy. “France is in ferment.
The pressure keeps building, I don’t know
when it will blow. But one day it will.” n“PEOPLE DON’T FEEL THEY ARE IN COMMAND OF
THEIR DESTINY. FRANCE IS IN FERMENT. I DON’T
KNOW WHEN IT WILL BLOW, BUT IT WILL”
Left: Macron kisses his mother,
Françoise Noguès, after winning
the presidency, May 2017. Above:
the Macrons with Emmanuel’s
stepchildren, from left, Tiphaine,
38, Laurence, 44 and Sébastien, 47PA
The Sunday Times Magazine • 17