Le Point points to President Macron’s “international impotence”.

French weekly point On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron pointed to the international impotence he says he is transforming Europe and the world by dressing himself up in reforming France.

“Emmanuel Macron has excited his presidency in Europe. Will he end it under Boos?” asks Luc de Barochez, editor-in-chief of the Monde du Point service, in an editorial published online titled “Emmanuel Macron, international impotence.”

“Emmanuel Macron’s first election, in 2017, was a beacon of hope for all pro-Europeans on the continent. After the double shock of 2016 – the British Yes vote in the Brexit referendum, then Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election – his installation at the Élysée seemed to herald the end of populist national dreams. But after the re-election six years later, the tone among the neighbors is completely different,” the editorial observes.

Anyone who claims to rebuild Europe or change the world comes up against “terrible difficulties” when it comes to modernizing France. “How can you be credible on the international stage with a reform plan when you don’t know how to put your house in order? He is surprised.

The episode of the yellow dresses in 2018-2019, then the chaos caused by the pension reform plan in 2023, revealed the reality in its “dark” light: the President is “paralyzed at home, a France in debt up to its neck, a government that cannot control public finances, a sick French democracy”. We observe.

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The contrast between the ambition displayed and the “thinness” of the results couldn’t be stronger, hammers the editor, for whom “his cookie-cutter style, his urge to play it alone, his errors analyze as much as he believed. He can control Donald Trump, control Vladimir Putin, fool Angela Merkel.” , could reconcile Libyan factions or subdue Lebanese Hezbollah, tarnishing his record despite a more active foreign policy,” he adds.

According to the editorial, his “changed” positions, such as the 2019 protrusion on NATO’s “brain death”, have “shocked” France’s partners and “damaged its reputation”.

“Playing with bad luck, he had to walk the racks, like when Australia canceled a wonderful deal to buy French submarines in favor of American submarines. Or like when military revolutions in the Sahel forced him, like when François Hollande started the anti-terrorist operation Bargane to a glorious end”, the commentator maintains.

If Emmanuel Macron never embarrasses Europe, the Russo-Ukrainian war made it possible for Emmanuel Macron to show what a sovereign Europe is, at a time when it gave him the opportunity to put his principles into practice. “The tenant of the Elysée doesn’t get his chance”.

“Although France holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union (…), it has failed to take the lead in supporting Ukraine. It has long believed that it could influence the course of events through an exclusive dialogue with Vladimir Putin, and it did not measure the extent to which the war was going to upset the European balance. The German Chancellor “He did not succeed in working with Olaf Scholes,” notes the editorial.

Conclusion: A post-Brexit United Kingdom, dependent on Poland and Central Europe, the United States has taken the lead in securing Ukraine and thus Europe. Luc de Baroches wonders if the bitter thing is that by limiting the European contribution to the Ukrainian security effort, we are encouraging everyone who thinks there is no Europe. Worth protecting.

“At the dawn of the 2024 US presidential election campaign, we offer arguments to the Trump right who want to withdraw from the old continent. As its stable-bearer falters, Europe’s power is flagging”, we conclude.

With MAP