SUMMER OF DISCONTENT MARS MACRON’S IMAGE

PARIS: For Emmanuel Macron, the summer holidays couldn’t come quickly enough. The president should still be basking in the World Cup victory that sparked tumultuous joy on the streets of France — but instead, he heads off to his southern summer retreat on Friday weighed down by a damaging scandal. For two weeks opponents have seized on revelations that former top aide Alexandre Benalla roughed up May Day protesters while wearing police insignia, and that Macron’s office knew about it but didn’t inform prosecutors. It has capped a series of bad news and missteps on several fronts in recent weeks, analysts say, taking the shine off the leader who was supposed to shake both France and Europe out of their torpor. Rightwingers and leftwingers alike have grilled top officials with zeal over their handling of the Benalla affair, and even went so far Tuesday as to stage two votes of confidence in parliament. Thanks to its comfortable majority, the government survived — but the scandal has nonetheless given opponents ample air time to attack Macron’s response, which they say was worryingly dismissive of the checks on his power. While Macron has shrugged off the affair as a “storm in the teacup”, it has taken its toll on his approval ratings, with a record 60 percent reporting an unfavourable opinion of him in an Ipsos poll last week. “Benallagate” has also halted his push at a constitutional reform which aims to streamline the legislative process and shrink the number of lawmakers in parliament by a third. Adding to his difficulties, the government admitted this week that economic growth was slowing and would fall short of its 2 percent target for this year as a trade war looms with the US. Corporate tax cuts and labour reforms have not kept the jobless rate from climbing recently to 9.2 percent, well above the European average of 8.3 percent. “People are starting to say, ‘ In the end, what is he doing for me? Is the country doing better?’ And it’s still a bit early to measure that,” said Bruno Jeanbart, deputy chief at the polling firm OpinionWay.