“Act”, such is Emmanuel Macron’s mantra for his second term.
He promises to act. Emmanuel Macron hammered the word ten times, Saturday, May 7, during a reinvestiture ceremony, more monarchical than ever. As if to dispel this impression of a suspended time since his re-election on April 24. “Gathering and pacifying does not mean doing nothing,” he insisted, once again promising to “invent a new method” of governance. Without giving any real details. For Emmanuel Macron, the path will be more difficult than his re-election score (58%) might suggest. Is that why he takes his time choosing his prime minister?
He knows that the French re-elected him without enthusiasm
On his way of moving from words to deeds will depend not his fate but indeed that of a fractured country. He knows that the French re-elected him without enthusiasm. He also knows his story and that of the re-elected presidents before him. Their second term was rather poor. Charles de Gaulle’s epic ended between the barricades of May 68 and the failed referendum on the Senate. The adventure of François Mitterrand shattered on business, the secrets of his private life and his Vichy past. As for Jacques Chirac, described as a “lazy king” by Nicolas Sarkozy, he just saved the day by standing up to the Americans on the war in Iraq. For the rest, he did nothing with his 82% obtained in 2002.
Unlike his elders, Emmanuel Macron is a young president (44 years old) and he can find the springs to ward off the inaction of the second term. If he wins the legislative elections in June, President Macron will be the first head of state since the founder of the Fifth Republic to be able to lead the country for an entire decade without cohabitation. Relieved of the pressure of re-election, he will be able to act fully and will have no excuse if he does not reform. In the immediate future, he must take care of the end of the month for the French. Too bad he did not mention, on Saturday, his “exceptional law for purchasing power” as well as the urgent pension reform (which he has already zapped for five years). Then there will always be time to worry about the end of the world. He also placed his second mandate under the sign of ecology and surprised by making the “oath to bequeath to youth a more livable planet”. In five years, it is not won.