Starting 2nd term, Macron faces war in Europe, social tensions at home
PARIS — Beneath the chandeliers of the Elysée Palace, Emmanuel Macron was inaugurated Saturday for a second five-year term as president of France, vowing to lead more inclusively and to “act first to avoid any escalation following the Russian aggression in Ukraine.”
In a sober speech lasting fewer than 10 minutes, Macron seemed determined to project a new humility and a break from a sometimes abrasive style.
“Rarely has our world and our country confronted such a combination of challenges,” he said.
Macron, 44, easily held off the far-right nationalist leader Marine Le Pen to win reelection last month with 58.55% of the vote. It was a more decisive victory than polls had suggested, but it also left no doubt of the anger and social fracture he will now confront.
Where other countries had ceded to “nationalist temptation and nostalgia for the past” and to ideologies “we thought left behind in the last century,” France had chosen “a republican and European project, a project of independence in a destabilized world,” Macron said.
He has spent a lot of time in recent months attempting to address that instability, provoked, above all, by Russia’s war in Ukraine. His overtures have borne little fruit. Still, Macron made clear that he would fight so that “democracy and courage prevail” in the struggle for “a new European peace and a new autonomy on our continent.”
Macron is an ardent proponent of greater “strategic autonomy,” sovereignty and independence for Europe, which he sees as a precondition for relevancy in the 21st century. This quest has brought some friction with the United States, largely overcome during the war in Ukraine, even if Macron seems to have more faith in negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin than U.S. President Joe Biden has.
Macron is scheduled to travel to Strasbourg Monday to address the European Parliament and celebrate Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, commemorating the end of World War II in Europe, which, in contrast to Putin’s Victory Day on Monday, is dedicated to the concept of peace through unity on the continent.
Macron vowed Saturday to govern in conjunction with labor unions and all representatives of the cultural, economic, social and political spheres. This would stand in contrast to the top-down style he favored in his first term, which often seemed to turn parliament into a sideshow.