Even if he succeeds, he will disappoint

IN THE age of the 140-character tweet, it is a measure of Emmanuel Macron’s sense of self-importance that he spoke for a full 90 minutes yesterday when addressing a special sitting of the French parliament.

But it is equally a measure of the 39-year-old president’s ambition for reinvigorating both France and Europe, following a decade of crisis in which political timidity and entrenched vested interests have blocked the path to reform.

Mr Macron did not shy away from acknowledging the “disappointments” of the past, daring to define his own presidency against the recent failures of Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, who both promised big, but failed to deliver.

In a bid to shake the French state from its complacency, he promised to cut MPS by a third, simplify the legislative process and use referendums where necessary to make good on his promise to restore the public finances while liberalising labour markets.

However, making speeches is the easy part. Mr Macron promised “deep change”, but in the mould of Barack Obama, sugared his narrative with platitudes. “I refuse to choose between ambition and fairness” and “you do not need to trample on anyone to succeed”. The truth is that if Mr Macron is to make good on his promises to increase labour mobility, make it easier to hire and fire and to bring in France’s budget deficit beneath the EU’S target of 3 per cent, there will have to be some trampling.

The real danger for Mr Macron, given the soaring, self-regarding grandiosity of yesterday’s performance at Versailles, is that even if he succeeds, he will disappoint.