France is ‘going to the dogs,’ Macron’s inner circle despairs

PARIS  — It has the air of a last supper. The black-and-white photograph captures the angst and frustration of President Emmanuel Macron’s inner circle, presumably at the very moment he briefs them he’s about to bet big on a high-stakes parliamentary election.

Macron is seated at a table — with a small carriage clock before him — in an opulent chamber of the Élysee palace, while a palpable tension grips his closest lieutenants opposite. It’s perhaps an unusual image for the Élysée’s official photographer to post on Instagram, but no one doubts it fairly reflects the nerves wracking the president’s inner circle.

Instagram post taken from Soazig de la Moissonnière

Humiliated by the far-right National Rally in the EU election, Macron delivered a bombshell announcement June 9 that he would try to hold back the advances of the right with a national election. Since then, Macron’s top team has been conspicuous for their doubts, grumbling and low spirits.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire — a pillar of Macron’s Renaissance liberal project — won the award for most apocalyptic diagnosis on a campaign stop in northern France after Le Figaro quoted him bemoaning that “the country is going to the dogs.”

Such bilious despair poses a problem for France’s future. One of the biggest questions facing French politics, after all, is who will fill the massive vacuum in the political center when Macron’s presidency ends in 2027.

Those scanning the top table for a liberal savior will be disappointed. Macron’s centrist coalition risks being wiped out in a vote spanning two rounds — on June 30 and July 7 — by the left as well as by the far right, and the president’s allies appear to be seeking an exit strategy rather than glory in a famous last stand.

Barbed comments about the French president, once only whispered, are now being expressed openly. Macron loyalist Le Maire said the leader had taken the decision to dissolve parliament alone — and that the choice “has created, in our country, among the French people, everywhere, anxiety, misunderstanding and sometimes anger,” as he put it on French radio.

That’s a decidedly discordant note from Le Maire, who only weeks ago was tipped to be Macron’s nominee for an all-powerful EU economy commissioner role to advance the country’s industrial agenda in Brussels.

Early exits

The timing of the parliamentary election has hamstrung Macron’s allies, who hadn’t even begun to limber up ahead of a duel with far-right foe Marine Le Pen in the next presidential election in 2027. Macron can’t run for re-election, and several coalition partners including Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, former PM Édouard Philippe and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin have been eyeing his job.

Now, with the political center reeling, some are going their own way and staking out more independent platforms.

Meanwhile, the ultimate prize — the presidency — seems ever further away.

“It has properly kicked off the succession race, but whereas the goal was about reigning over a palace, now it’s about inheriting a shed,” said Benjamin Morel, a political scientist at the Paris Panthéon-Assas University.

But Macron makes no bones about risking the political fortunes of his allies in his latest gamble.

“There may be personal ambitions that have been thwarted by the current changes, it’s duly noted. But it’s not important, we are facing a historic moment for the nation,” he said during a press conference last week.

Topping the list of those whose ambitions have been thwarted is Attal. Sitting opposite Macron in the black-and-white photograph, the young PM clearly took a body blow. After avoiding the public for 24 hours, Attal re-emerged last Tuesday to disparage Macron’s decision as “sudden” and “brutal.”

Despite his obvious dismay at the decision to dissolve parliament, he later rallied to insist: “Now is not the time for qualms.”

But what happens to Attal now? Before Macron’s election gambit the 35-year-old rising centrist star — who is more popular than the president — was being groomed for the top spot. 

In the EU election, after all, Attal was the youthful face sent to out-debate Jordan Bardella, the equally fresh face of the National Rally. Ironically, Bardella is now tipped to succeed Attal in Matignon, the stately residence of France’s prime ministers.

“[Given that Attal] was very involved in the European election, as the anti-Bardella weapon, the major defeat [suffered by Macron’s Renaissance] is not going to help his prospects. He’s also going to suffer as he has been marketing himself as Macron’s natural successor,” said Bruno Cautrès, a politics researcher with the Sciences Po institute.

Attal has also been humiliated by being excluded from Macron’s recent political consultations, despite the fact the snap election will almost certainly end his premiership.

To one side of Attal in the photograph is Interior Minister Darmanin, pressing his hands — as if in prayer — to his face. To the other is National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet, who is gloomily taking notes. POLITICO’s Paris Playbook learned she had told Macron she thought he was taking a bad decision; she later said she thought “there was another path,” one of coalition building rather than calling an election.

End of the center?

Then there’s former Prime Minister Philippe, who has conspicuously been keeping his distance — even disappearing to take the sea air in Le Havre, a Normandy port whose mayor he became in 2020.

Philippe, who served as PM from 2017 to 2020, used to be seen as the country’s next centrist president, but has long chafed under his promise to stay “free but loyal” to Macron.

In recent days Philippe has distanced himself from Macron’s inner circle more firmly, calling the EU election defeat “a rejection of the president” and questioning whether Macron should take part in the campaign.

In the upcoming parliamentary elections Philippe’s “Horizons” group will run as a separate party for the first time, which implies a certain financial independence. He has also started cultivating relations with conservative politicians from Les Républicains.

“The French president’s coalition is quickly falling apart, with coalition partners breaking away,” political analyst Morel said.

But although Philippe, who remains popular for his management of the coronavirus pandemic, has avoided national politics for the past four years, he risks terminal injury if voters turn against Macron’s camp.

According to Morel, the parliamentary elections will likely reinforce the left and Le Pen’s National Rally, which will be seen as the strongest alternatives in 2027.

After Macron, “the center risks becoming once again a place where politicians go to die,” he said. “With fewer lawmakers, networks, a centrist candidate will struggle to conquer the presidency.”