Emmanuel Macron’s Neoliberal Blitzkrieg

The gambit is a  well-known opening move in the chess game. The player makes a sacrifice,  typically a pawn, for the sake of a compensating advantage. Emmanuel  Macron metaphorically did that in the first six months of his  presidency. In the run-up to the presidential election, the political  neophyte introduced himself as neither left-wing nor right-wing, but  rather as left-wing and right-wing. 

It was a bold attempt to supersede the deeply entrenched left-right divide in French politics,  and to take from both camps “what works best.” In so doing, Macron was  able, for a short period of time, to defy political gravity and position  himself as an ideal centrist candidate. What’s more, the 39-year old candidate was untested politically, a  young bright figure with a liberal profile and background. In this  respect, Macron likes to remind everyone that he was once the editorial  assistant to renowned French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Indeed, Macron is  keen to be seen as the first “intellectual president” since François  Mitterrand. 

If Macron was a breath of fresh air in the run-up to the election,  his political honeymoon with the voters did not last long. His first  actions in power have marked the end of an original realignment of  French politics. His economic policy blatantly leans to the right and is  of a neoliberal nature. Both sides say so. Les Républicains,  the party launched by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, has been  remarkably silent since the start of the Macron presidency. They are  unable to mount any significant challenge because, as some Republicans  privately argue, Macron has stolen most of their policies. In short,  they have virtually nothing to oppose and nowhere to go. 

For political observers of French politics, Macron’s shift to the  right was no major surprise. Backed by a strong 60-seat majority in the  National Assembly, Macron had made no secret that, should he be elected,  he would dramatically reshape France’s labour market. While running for  president, Macron said that France needed “a shock of trust, a real  acceleration.” He has all the constitutional power to pass any  legislation he wishes to put forward. From a constitutional point of  view, the French president, even called a “republican Monarch,” is the  most powerful of any Western democracy (including the U.S). The reform of the French Labour Code (Code du Travail) was  hastily passed in September. Macron’s reform goes much further than the  El Khomri voted by the Socialist government in 2016. While the French  labour market had been traditionally protective of workers’ rights, the  new law has dramatically shifted the power into the employers’ and  business’ hands. The French president chose a rather controversial way to push through the labour reform: he asked the deputies of his party, La République En Marche,  which controls the National Assembly, to give the government the right  to pass rulings, instead of letting the parliament debate and vote  legislation. Macron wanted to reform the Labour Code quickly and  decisively. 

Given the depth and importance of the reforms, his critics  have argued that Macron showed contempt for parliamentary representation  on this occasion. Macron promised that the reforms would bring more freedom and more  equality of opportunity for employees and job seekers. The issue is that  a majority of workers saw these measures as market deregulation, rather  than market modernization. Some of the more controversial measures  include: the role of industrial tribunals being largely reduced; the  number of working days paid after a lay-off being cut down; and the  issues that were previously set by the law, such as contract details,  being now negotiable within the company. Negotiations with employers  would also be possible without the presence of a union. 

And yet, Macron implemented this flagship reform without encountering any significant opposition: The Front National has  been mute following Marine Le Pen’s disastrous second round of the  presidential election. The Republicans have been in crisis since  François Fillon’s abysmal result in the first round of the same  election. The Socialists are leaderless, have no program, are losing  members and officials in droves, and are still wondering whether they  should oppose Macron’s policy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the self-appointed  main opponent to Macron, has indeed been a more robust opponent. A  former socialist official. Mélenchon created a new movement called La France Insoumise (Unbowed  France). The leftist Mélenchon has given up on the notions of socialism  or the left. In true populist fashion, his aim is to “federate the  people” against an “oligarchy” in order to recapture a “lost [political  and economic] sovereignty.” Mélenchon has called Macron’s labour law  reforms a “social coup d’état” and organized several street protests  against the law, which failed to mobilise. Furthermore, Mélenchon’s  tactical disagreements with the unions further demoralized protesters.  The left was easily defeated and Macron won the first round of his  battle after a successful Blitzkrieg. 

Macron is also pushing through severe public service cuts, such as  150,000 government-subsidized fixed-term contract jobs in schools.  Macron’s economic agenda is increasingly regarded as a Thatcherite-style  attack on social rights in France. This is his political gambit: he has  no major opponent to his right and to his center-left. He therefore  remains convinced that he occupies a central and pivotal position in a  fast-changing political landscape. On this count, he seems to be right.  Despite a temporary slump in popularity following the passing his labour  law reforms, he largely dominates French politics. The labour law reform may be largely responsible for breaking the  spell with the public, at least with moderate center-left voters. But  there is more to it than economics. After all, there may still be  significant cross-party support for his neoliberal agenda. 

People are  also taken aback by Macron’s oratory style and his obvious “class  contempt.” He, above all, seems to display no empathy for the worst-off.  His comments on his political opponents often sound patronizing, if not  scornful. In early September, days before a union-led protest against  his overhaul of labour laws, the French president said in a speech that  he would not back down “to slackers, cynics, and extremists.” Critics have called him a “powdered marquis, a megalomaniac with  royal pretensions, a rich man’s president or a communicator without a  cause.” Macron could not care less. He has retreated into the Élysée  Palace, and tightened presidential communication. Unlike Sarkozy and  Hollande, who commented on day-to-day affairs, Macron stands back and  intervenes little. He thinks that power is best exercised when wrapped  in a cloud of mystery. 

Aloof and haughty, Macron has labelled his  presidency “Jupetarian”—a formal and strong presidency with all the pomp  of the 5th Republic à la de Gaulle or Mitterrand. Macron has not been particularly liberal from a political or cultural  viewpoint. The government’s treatment of migrants and refugees is as  harsh and heavy-handed as the previous government. So far, he has stayed  away from the main controversies on national identity, which inevitably  revolve around Muslims. Racial tensions run high in France, and the  country could do with a more inclusive and multicultural approach to the  question of citizenship. 

On Europe, he has sought to position himself  as the leader who can fix the European Union’s political and economic  crisis, but he gave few details on how he is going to do so. Macron is no doubt the new strong man of French politics. His embrace  of the political center ground, followed by a shift to the neoliberal  right, has disarmed the center-left and the conservative right. However,  the young president should bear in mind that his position of strength  derives not so much of his actions, but rather of the weakness of his  opponents. 

Philippe Marlière is a Professor of French and European Politics at University College London (UK). Twitter: @PhMarliere  

The original article appeared on CounterPunch.