In the new year Emmanuel Macron has to find answers to the questions of his critics. And a critic, he has many. Not only the yellow of the West to make pressure, but also the economy. At least now Macron is in need of his party.
The party La République en Marche (LRM) has yet to set everything on one card: Emmanuel Macron. Now, the President of France needs to strengthen his party, to survive the social unrest politically.
More empathy – that the President has understood. Recently, he invited mayors from across France in the Elysée Palace. A Premiere. Local politicians meet with the French President, set up on the unadorned exhibition centre Porte de Versailles. The ground floor of the Elysée Palace remains usually diplomats reserved. However, despite this conciliatory gesture, the critical time is not out of the Macron. Emmanuel Macron is under pressure.
Social peace is in danger
Whether it is the French President manages to pacify the movement of the yellow West over the holidays, far from the massive street protests of land, have to grow far to a real political force, even if the number of protesters decreases. “All we have to do an extra-parliamentary Opposition”, says the political expert Jerome Sainte-Marie of the think-tank PollingVox the movement. The fact Macron must respond in the new year politically, beyond the concessions to low income earners, the package was put together as an emergency to the end of the year in a hurry. The yellow West, Sainte-Marie, represented a turning point in Macrons presidency.
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The year 2019 will be the Year for the young President. He must show the French that they have mastered the Supreme office of state. For this he will need to skill evidence, and his by many as authoritarian and elitist-criticized policy of republishing. The Prime Minister fire and the new beginning to announce? This political artifice, firmly anchored in the French Constitution, and virtuosity used not, as yet, any predecessor, is not rich at Macron, so the evaluation is politically Familiar. Macron pay now, that have chosen only 24 percent of the French, out of Conviction, according to the operation of many of the more Conservative in the Paris policy.
The expectations of the political newcomers are high. “He will need to expand its political majority, if he wants to save his mandate,” says Sainte-Marie in conversation with DW. So far, the protests couldn’t do it, Emmanuel Macron fire up properly, unhinged, you have the President. Could rely on an absolute majority in the house of representatives.
Has gambled Macrons party?
But in the meantime, voices from within its own ranks, the call for a change in thinking: in the dialogue with the citizens, in social policy, in the Occur. “Macron is to finally stop talking as the chief of staff of a Start-up of the Nation”, criticized the Deputy Patrick Vignal of the party La République en Marche (LRM). Beyond the often arrogant criticized behavior also LRM politicians such as Vignal is now calling for a new social policy, better suited to the Guarantor. For example, that low-income earners, no increased social security contributions to pay. Also, the revival of the Macron abolished wealth tax, many of his own party to bring back into the conversation. Macrons gifts of Money, Economists worry, alone, by the suspension of the fuel tax of four billion euros for the budget, lack of in the coming year. The aim of the government to push the deficit below the permitted 3 per cent to 2.8, is null and void.
Protest of the yellow West: Emmanuel Macron needs to strengthen his party, to survive the social unrest politically
The yellow West, chasing the President from office, political observers are unthinkable. Hardly a Constitution protects the President as strong as the French. The coming year brings with it from the point of view of experts, a double challenge for the President: to the outside, the French will be facing, but also inwards, to one’s own party. Uncomfortable it might be, should crumble to the support of their own party actually. Political analyst Jérôme Sainte-Marie thinks it’s impossible. Like many, he does not believe that Emmanuel Macron gives up his liberal and authoritarian style completely. Also at the European level before the European elections next year is not his credibility as a Reformer.
“If the pressure from the street is not decreasing and at the same time the resentment in the party grows, you can not exclude the possibility that it comes to a vote of no confidence,” says Sainte-Marie. Then the President must pick a Prime Minister from the political Opposition – the so-called Co-Habitation. In France the odious purpose of government is the last resort. Ironically, the self-declared maker Macron would be without political Power, and a politically satisfactory answer to the yellow West more difficult.