The endless narcissism of Emmanuel Macron

I watched Emmanuel Macron’s prime time press conference last night but I wish I hadn’t. It was meant to be Macron’s relaunch of his presidency after a tough period of soaring prices, international and civil disorder, Europe in turmoil and awful polls. I should have known better than to stay up past my usual bedtime. Mr Macron is a president who delights in his own words yet is entirely unaware of his soporific effect on others. These were two and a half hours of my life I will never recover. 

This was Macron’s first press conference since 2019 so there was a lot to ask him but the questions were perfunctory and the journalists were accessories. This was Macron en continu, Jupiter hurling thunderbolts of statistics, claims, promises and revelations from the gilded Olympus of the Salle des Fêtes at the Elysée Palace, whose ostentation makes Buckingham Palace seem a slum.

Of course this wasn’t really a press conference. It was theatre. A one-man show where there was no director to tell the principal to shut up. The hacks were decorative and their questions merely a cue for further lengthy exegesis. At no stage did a journalist launch anything resembling a challenge. There are no Laura Kuenssbergs or Andrew Neils in the Elysée press corps.

Equally ornamental, members of his odd new government flanked the stage, feigning rapt attention. Gabriel Attal, the new prime minister, openly gay and at 34 the youngest ever fifth republic premier, had a fabulous hair cut. They were present to nod, sitting at the feet of the president, as disposable as a mouchoir. 

Macron was a keen high school drama student – indeed he married his teacher Brigitte. He also projects something of a divine right. His monologue was a ‘presidential cathodic high mass’, according to Politico. Credit where due, however. The president of the republic demonstrated a stamina that was simply exhausting to watch.

There are stories around that Macron was low and depressed last spring after he failed to get a legislative majority at the National Assembly elections. But last night he was at the hyper end of the manic-depressive spectrum. Indefatigable it might have been but not clearly signifying anything other than Macron’s love of declamation.

He declared his exegesis to be an account of ‘Where we’ve come from (and) where we’re going,’ but by the end of this long night in Paris, those still awake would not have been much enlightened. ‘Bla bla,’ declared the left. ‘Interminable,’ said Marine Le Pen. ‘I wish I was dead,’ declared a despairing colleague on a WhatsApp group, and this was at minute 55.

Media coverage this morning is predictable with lots of stenography and ‘What you need to know’ pieces in the groupthink media. And the president provided plenty of fodder. School discipline? Children will undergo civil education and sing the ‘Marseillaise’ every morning and the state will experiment with school uniforms. Infertility? Macron will pay couples more to have babies. Taxes? They will get lower. The cost of living? The worst is over and thanks to government efforts to cushion consumers from high energy prices, spending power has increased.

None of this will resonate much with the voters who are in an angry mood, believe none of this and who continue to put pouvoir d’achat (purchasing power) at the very top of their concerns, followed by law and order. Paris has always been another country but Macron now seems to be inhabiting another universe bounded by only the eighth arrondissement.

A paradox of the evening was that despite its heroic duration, so much was left untouched.

Macron’s failure after his presidential election to win a legislative majority in the National Assembly has made it impossible for his government to pass legislation other than by decree. But this recently changed on the new tougher immigration law, in which Macron did a deal for the Assembly votes of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National. So what’s that about Mr Macron? Doing deals with the devil? This was not a subject that interested the journalists hand-picked to ask questions.

The crisis in Africa where the French have been humiliated? Not mentioned. The likely forthcoming wipe-out of the president’s party in the May European elections? Ignored.

It is a curiosity of political journalism on the two sides of the Channel that Westminster hacks take pleasure in eviscerating politicians, while their counterparts in Paris are pathetic poodles. The most painful and embarrassing element of this so-called press conference was the performance of the journalists. 

There is an element to Macron reminiscent of the story of the emperor’s new clothes. The president just talks and talks, indulging himself in narcissistic flights of fancy. Everyone pretends to pay attention. The journalists furiously scribble notes. But there’s no little boy to point out that his performance was simply weird and disconnected. 

What does this tell us about Macron? Well, he loves the sound of his own voice. He has absolute self-belief that he’s the smartest guy in the room. And he believes that just saying something is tantamount to doing something. He imagines he is a master communicator. He has certainly mastered the harangue.