January 13, 2025 - 11:45am

New polling has French President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity at a six-year low. His current dismal approval rating of 21% is down 12 points from when he called an election in June, and just one point higher than the 20% low recorded during the Gilets Jaunes protests of 2018. To compound the problem, new Prime Minister François Bayrou is also polling terribly at 20% — despite only being appointed last month. The entire Macron regime now has a chronic legitimacy crisis.

Meanwhile, the President’s allies seem intent on stirring up trouble on the international scene, a move which is likely to backfire and cause even more political chaos in France. Last week, Macron’s ally and former European Union commissioner Thierry Breton engaged in a spat with Elon Musk over the latter’s support of the AfD in the upcoming German election. In response to Breton’s criticisms, Musk promoted a tweet by a Hungarian MEP saying that Breton wanted to “cancel” the German elections.

There is certainly no love lost between Musk and Breton. The latter has been outspoken about the possibility of banning X in Europe so Musk no doubt sees the former commissioner as a serious threat to his business model, which has a larger subscriber base in Europe than it does in the United States. But considering that Musk’s dispute with Keir Starmer’s government has dominated headlines in Britain, one wonders why Macron’s allies are trying to create similar problems for France.

The French economy, like that of many of its European neighbours, is in a desperate state. It has been hobbling along, barely growing since the third quarter of 2022 — almost three years of stagnation. As with much of the rest of the continent, France has experienced a severe cost-of-living crisis due to the energy sanctions and counter-sanctions associated with the Ukraine war, and electricity prices for end consumers remain elevated relative to their pre-war levels.

On top of this, the French state seems to be moving rapidly toward bankruptcy. Over the past few months there has been a significant political dust-up in the country over the government’s economic measures, with the Right-wing Rassemblement National opposing Macron’s attempts at passing an austerity budget. The French Parliament has since had to use emergency powers to allow the government to fund itself.

The opinion polls for the next election do not bode well for Macron and his allies either, with Marine Le Pen by far the most popular presidential candidate. While it is conceivable that the French establishment may be able to cobble together some sort of coalition to ensure that she does not reach the ÉlysĂ©e in 2027, this is looking less and less likely by the day.

All of this raises the question of why Macron’s allies seem intent on picking a fight with Musk and the incoming Trump administration. Part of the calculus is presumably that, after seeing the X owner back the AfD in Germany, they are fearful that he might support Le Pen in France. This is probably an accurate assessment, but if the Macronists go out of their way to start a dispute it’s a safe bet that Musk and the Trump administration will focus even more of their energy on France. Since the Macron government is on the ropes already, it seems unlikely that it would survive that political onslaught.


Philip Pilkington is a macroeconomist and investment professional, and the author of The Reformation in Economics

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