Macron vs Putin: this summer’s Olympic battle

Last summer, Emmanuel Macron lashed out at France’s constitution because it prevents him from running for a third consecutive term in office. It is, he told his entourage, a ‘disastrous stupidity’.

The majority of the French people would disagree. Macron’s approval ratings are dire, and a poll at the start of this month revealed that the youngest president in the history of the Fifth Republic has the support of only 7 per cent of the under-35s.

Should anyone be surprised? Immigration is out of control, farmers have marched on Paris and teachers are at the end of their tether because of classroom intimidation. Anti-Semitic acts have surged since Hamas attacked Israel in October and drug cartels are extending their reach into towns and cities. Violent crime is up and trust in the judiciary is down.

To cap it all, the country’s finances are a shambles. Last week the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies announced that France’s deficit has soared 22 per cent in a year, and is now 5.5 per cent of GDP. The economy was supposed to be Macron’s strong suit. As a veteran broadcaster quipped on French television: ‘Macron was presented as the “Mozart of Finance”, but he’s ended up composing the requiem.’

Never lacking in confidence, however, Macron is repositioning himself not as merely leader of France but as Europe’s de facto commander-in-chief, capitalising on France’s standing as the only one of the 27 EU member states to have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It is also the only EU country with its own nuclear weapons.

Macron hopes that his image of himself as a Eurozone Caesar will be strengthened by the Olympics in Paris this summer. He has told his advisers that the Games will be ‘the climax of his mandate’ and place France ‘at the centre of the world’.