Is Emmanuel Macron missing his start to his second term? Since his re-election on April 24, the head of state has struggled to regain the momentum of his first five-year term. The legislative elections having disavowed him, the Head of State finds himself in a relative majority in the National Assembly and encounters difficulties in finding his cruising speed. Emmanuel Macron would no longer be in it according to the confidences of a close friend of the head of state at Europe 1.
Raul Magni-Berton, political scientist, reminds Planet.fr that this is a second term and that he is therefore not “judged by voters”. “It’s new for France but in the United States, we tend to say that Presidents have a little more fun. They are less active and focused on the themes that interest them”, specifies the teacher-researcher at the Catholic University of Lille.
According to the political specialist, “it is clear that the results of the legislative elections required governing in a different way since it is necessary for each law to have the support of at least one group”. All the more so knowing that the far left and right deputies are relatively opposed to him and that the Republicans have refused to make a coalition agreement.
“The result is that the roadmap and the communication strategy are not at all the same,” said Raul Magni-Berton. The professor of political science considers “logical that he takes a little time to rethink the strategy and the timetable of the paths he wants to take”. “This moment of softness” is this small drop in morale of President Macron would be due to the necessary “rehabilitation in relation to a situation which was not at all foreseeable”.
However, we have just seen on September 13 that the Head of State had decided to relaunch the battle for retirement. He indeed revealed “his desire to accelerate” the implementation of this reform this Monday, September 12 in a two-hour interview with the presidential press. He is already considering an implementation “in the summer of 2023”. According to Raul Magni-Berton, Emmanuel Macron wants to show that he is “very determined”, but a “forceful passage would be very complicated”. So is the President of the Republic seeking to impact consciences by leaving an emblematic reform after a first five-year term heavily upset by the pandemic and the “Yellow Vests” crisis?
“Like everyone else, he wants a little glory, but his paw is not sure that he will leave it on this reform which risks being rejected and giving rise to demonstrations,” said the political scientist. He judges that for President Macron, it is very simple to “stay in history with very symbolic projects such as the idea of citizens drawn by lot which does not give much, but of which he can boast of being the first to do so”. For the political science teacher, “with the pension reform, he is going through the hard times”.
This Sunday, September 11, at the end of ZEvent, a charity streaming marathon that has raised more than 10 million euros for several environmental associations, Emmanuel Macron tweeted welcoming an initiative “to limit emissions” of CO2 and “respond to the climate disturbances that are already there”. Several streamers have stepped up to denounce the hypocrisy of the President of the Republic who has done nothing at the state level but is reclaiming these private initiatives. “The fact of saying nothing when people have managed to raise so much money for ecology is also a communication error, so he was in a bit of a complicated situation”, concludes the political scientist.
Raul Magni-Berton, political scientist.
To sum up, the political science teacher believes that “Emmanuel Macron’s communication strategy at the start of his second term is that of someone who has never lost”. “Knowing how to speak in crisis situations is a communication he does not have”. “It’s the same Macron but with the inability to act as an almighty, in Jupiter. He therefore had to either adopt a more modest and more ‘concertatory’ communication strategy, or pressurize communication”, he concludes. .
For now, President Macron has chosen the second option instead. He failed to adopt the communication strategy of a President in a “minority government”. The National Council for Refoundation was a “com coup”, but Emmanuel Macron was not able to have this unifying speech in a government where each decision will have to be negotiated, as a President of the Republic could have. such as Angela Merckel.
