Michel Barnier’s doomed presidential bid

The French President Emmanuel Macron has, it is revealed, forbidden all talk at the Elysée of the forthcoming presidential election and has refused to discuss even whether he will be a candidate. His entire attention is focused on France and the French, he claims.

Of course this is entirely the opposite of the truth as his entire attention is focused on being re-elected. Nevertheless, he was likely to have been opening a bottle of something sparkling in which to dip his croissant this morning with the announcement that Michel Barnier, yet another no-hoper, has thrown his beret into the ring to oppose him. Divide and conquer seems to be Macron’s strategy. Although Macron’s party, La République en Marche, is hardly a party at all, having failed miserably in European regional and municipal elections, and millions of French voters despise him, and hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to oppose his vaccination passports, he is banking on an ancient calculus.