President Macron has run into his first domestic conflicts, stirring a spat with military chiefs and anger in local government over what are seen as high-handed demands for spending cuts.
“The moment of truth is starting for Emmanuel Macron,” Le Monde said yesterday as the president made clear that he would brook no dissent from a vast civil service that stands in the way of his promised revolution.
Mr Macron’s monarchical style has turned the high command against him. General Philippe de Villiers, chief of the general staff, was reprimanded publicly by the president for objecting to a parliamentary committee over an unexpected €850 million cut in his budget.
Generals say they have been humiliated by the young president, who has never served in the military but enjoys posing with the forces. “No one deserves to be blindly followed,” General de Villiers wrote on Facebook after Mr Macron told the military leadership: “I am your chief.” The general is to meet Mr Macron on Friday for what could be his marching orders.
The mayors in the country’s 36,000 town and villages are up in arms over Mr Macron’s move to scrap a property tax for 80 per cent of households. He promised state funds to replace the levy, which is a big source of council revenue, but he told the mayors on Monday that he expected sacrifices. He also annoyed mayors in the greater Paris area, telling them that he was going to “drastically simplify” the way that the region is run.
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Abroad, Mr Macron, 39, is still on a political honeymoon. On Monday, the International Monetary Fund appeared to succumb to the prevailing “Macronmania” and issued a glowing report on his “ambitious” reforms that would “go a long way” to remedying France’s high unemployment and weak growth.
France was declared the world’s most important “soft power” yesterday in an annual ranking that saw it jump from fifth place to displace the United States, which was downgraded from first to third. Britain retained second place in the Soft Power 30 study, by Portland Communications and the University of Southern California.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the radical leftwinger who came fourth in the presidential campaign, has called for protests on September 23 against what he calls Mr Macron’s “social coup d’état”.
