How Macron became the modern day Marie Antoinette

Imagine if David Cameron, at the height of the riots in August 2011, had abandoned London to embark on a speaking tour of foreign capitals to lecture the rest of the world on how European civilisation could help save the rest of the world from ‘chaos’. You now have an idea of what it must be like to French this week. Over the past week, protests against fuel taxes have erupted into violence across France, blocking autoroutes and leading to at least two deaths and 600 injuries. But where was the French president to be seen during all of this? He flew off to Berlin to commemorate Germany’s war dead, plugging his idea for a European army and telling German MPs ‘Europe and, within it, the Franco-German couple have the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace.’

Even Marie Antoinette had a greater connection with her people.