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Is Macron the new Trump?

LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

For the last three months journalists across the world have been missing the curious mix of bombast, arrogance, untruths and showmanship that was President Donald Trump. But is a new unlikely figure now filling that void? As an embattled, insecure incumbent staring down the barrel of defeat in an upcoming presidential contest dominated by Covid, Emmanuel Macron must be hoping his fate doesn’t play out like the Donald’s. But as France’s third wave of Covid gets underway, the country’s president appears to be taking tips from his one time counterpart on pandemic leadership.

The French newspaper Le Monde today reports a series of fawning quotes from Macron’s aides who now call him ‘the president epidemologist.’ One gushing insider praises his ability to ‘challenge’ the health ministry and its official advisers: ‘He consults all the studies as soon as they are published. To the point that, sometimes, the president can bring up one that the experts in front of him have not even read.’ Where

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