Club Lunch – Macron’s Leadership: Thorns in the Crown?

Since he was elected French president in May 2017, Emmanual Macron has imposed a new style and rhythm on French politics, characterised by: a vertical chain of command; a distrust of intermediaries between the President and the People; a robust form of political expression, based on an explicit rejection of left and right and organised political parties and a routine dismissal of the ‘old world’. The speed and rhythm of the reform program cast Macron as a new ‘fast President’, announcing multiple reforms in a blitzkrieg designed to destabilize the opposition, reminiscent of the early Blair period. At the Davos summit in February 2018, he declared ‘France is back’. Macron is representative of a global brand, admired elsewhere, a model of youthful, reformist and intentional political leadership. Why then has Macron appeared so fragile since Summer 2018?

Alistair Cole is Professor of Politics and Dean of Internationalisation at Sciences Po Lyon. Before that, he was the Vincent Wright Chair Professor in 2007 in Sciences Po Paris. A graduate of LSE and Oxford University, Alistair Cole has published extensively on French and European politics. His latest book – Emmanuel Macron and the re-making of France – will be published in March 2019.