Emmanuel Macron’s next fight could be his toughest yet

In normal circumstances, Emmanuel Macron would welcome a trip to Marrakech in December as an opportunity to escape cold Paris and enjoy some North African hospitality. But his date in the Moroccan city next week could not have come at a worse time. France is burning and Macron’s presence on Monday at the United Nations intergovernmental conference in order to sign France up to the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration could add to the conflagration.

The United Nations states that the global compact “comprises 23 objectives for better managing migration at local, national, regional and global levels”. The document has been more than two years in the making and its aim is to help the 258 million migrants around the world living outside their country of birth. According to the UN website, the Compact will address “the legitimate concerns” of the host countries while creating “conducive conditions that enable all migrants to enrich our societies through their human, economic and social capacities”. The pact is non-binding but that hasn’t stopped a number of nations rejecting it, with the USA, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic all refusing to put their names to the document; the issue has also