Macron woos mavericks fearing emergence of a French Trump
BELEAGUERED French president Emmanuel Macron has launched a charm offensive towards a string of anti-establishment figures amid reports that a surge of power to populist outsiders “scares the hell” out of him as his own ratings suffer a big dip.
Aides say there is deep concern at the Elysée Palace – in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic and ahead of 2022 presidential elections – about the potential rise of a Gallic Donald Trump or Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian who founded the Five Star movement.
Mr Macron feels it is wiser to connect with the fans of France’s maverick populists at the risk of increasing their influence, in order to better neuter the threat, advisers are cited as saying.
But the move has irked the president’s own camp, notably his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who Mr Macron reportedly overruled by telephoning one such figure and promising lockdown concessions. Mr Philippe enjoys poll ratings 11 percentage points higher than his boss.
Friction between the pair increased after Philippe de Villiers, founder of France’s most popular historical theme park, posted a text message from Mr Macron that he said proved the president had wrong-footed his “technorigid” prime minister to allow the park to reopen earlier than planned.
A prominent conservative, Mr de Villiers is the brains behind Le Puy du Fou which attracts two million visitors a year. He was apoplectic when Mr Philippe confirmed it would likely have to remain shut until mid-july but, according to Mr de Villiers, Mr Macron agreed it was “scandalous” and pledged to “repatriate” the decision to the defence council at the Elysée where “I’m the boss”. Soon after, it was announced that the theme park could envisage opening again as early as June 2.
According to Le Figaro, the prime minister saw red and, in a heated exchange, told Mr Macron he could “no longer bear this constant questioning of the law”.
Besides Mr de Villiers, Mr Macron recently visited Didier Raoult, an iconoclastic and popular virologist, hailing him as a “great scientist”. The Marseille medic infuriated France’s public health establishment by trumpeting claims he had found a fail-safe Covid treatment, which Mr Trump swears by but which studies say is ineffective.
His latest call was to Jean-marie Bigard – a stand-up comic famed for his politically incorrect sketches and a vocal supporter of the “yellow vests” who took France by storm last year.