Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
taking on a figure who has been, well, at the
center of global political drama for nearly a
decade now, Emmanuel Macron. He really is a political
anomaly, the disruptor, the, you know, the youthful
leader who arrived like a meteor. And whose tenure
has been defined by just constant, exhausting
crises. It's a truly meteoric. political trajectory.
I mean, he was born on December 21st, 1977. He's
been president of France and also co -prince
of Andorra since 2017. And his place in history
was sealed from day one, really. When he was
first elected, he was just 39 years old. That
made him the youngest French president ever.
And get this, the youngest head of state since
Napoleon. That comparison alone, Napoleon, it
just sets the stage for high drama, ambition
and, well, ultimately a lot of resistance. Exactly.
And our mission here. for you, the listener,
is to really unpack this complex figure. We're
using a whole stack of sources, articles, biographical
notes, political timelines. Right. We want to
go from his pretty unusual personal story and
that pivot into high finance all the way through
to the constant crises and, I mean, the revolving
door of prime ministers that's defined his second
term, especially as we look at the gridlock of
late 2025. It's not just a timeline. It's an
effort to understand the forces at play, you
know, from International cyber attacks hitting
his campaign to huge domestic unrest and these
high stakes global power struggles. All of it
has shaped the tenure of, I think it's fair to
say, France's most dynamic modern leader. OK,
let's unpack this journey. And we have to start
at the beginning because to get the political
macro on, you first have to understand the well,
the academic and personal rigor that shaped him.
When you look at Macron's early life, what's
striking is that it's not a path built for retail
politics. It seems designed for elite administration,
for pure intellectual firepower. Far from it.
He was born in Amiens. His parents were both
highly educated medical professionals. His mother
a physician, his father a professor of neurology.
So very academic household. Very. They divorced
later. in 2010 and while the family was secular
he made this pretty independent choice to be
baptized catholic at age 12. that's interesting
it is it's maybe a subtle hint of his later ability
to you know cross traditional divides though
today he identifies as agnostic that intellectual
blend seems so crucial he didn't just go to good
schools he went through the absolute uh crucible
of french elite preparation precisely his education
was a master class in relentless selection He
started at the Jesuit Lycée La Providence in
Amiens, which is where his most famous personal
story began. We'll get to that. And then he was
sent to finish at the ultra elite Lycée Henri
IV in Paris. He graduated with the highest honors
back as Méchant Trébien. And at the same time,
he got a diploma in piano studies from the Amiens
Conservatory. It just tells you this is someone
who can handle complexity and discipline incredibly
well. It does. And crucially, his early career
wasn't even in policy or economics. It was in
philosophy. That foundation, it has to inform
his later approach to power. It absolutely has
to. He was deeply steeped in high political theory.
He studied at Paris -Caix -Nanterre, got a DEA
degree, which is a master level qualification.
And his thesis, it wasn't light reading. What
was it on? Machiavelli and Hegel. These are thinkers
who deal directly with the harsh realities of
power, of statecraft, the role of great men in
history. Machiavelli and Hegel. Is that the blueprint
for the Jupiterian president he later talked
about? That synthesis is absolutely key. And
even more critically, around 1999, he worked
as an editorial assistant for the revered philosopher
Paul Ricoeur. Wow. Yeah. And this wasn't some
quick internship. He worked closely on Ricoeur's
final major work. So he was just absorbing these
dense theories on power, memory, and the state.
It gave him this incredibly deep theoretical
foundation for governance. But, you know, to
actually govern France, theory isn't enough.
You need the administrative credentials. And
he got them. After philosophy, he went straight
to the administrative track, a master's in public
affairs at Sciences Po. And then he graduated
from the notoriously selective École Nationale
d 'Administration. ENA. The pipeline for France's
highest civil servants. Exactly. His training
there was thorough. It even included time at
the French embassy in Nigeria. So by the end,
he was fully indoctrinated into the elite French
administrative machine, ready for any high office.
But the defining story, the personal narrative
that really explains his, I think, his singular
determination. It remains his relationship with
Brigitte Troneau, which started way back in Emyo.
It's the origin story of his adult life, and
it is extraordinary. It began when he was a 15
-year -old student at that Jesuit school. Brigitte
was his drama teacher. And she was married with
three children and 25 years older than him. Right.
They met during a theater workshop, and the bond
they formed was, by all accounts, immediate and
incredibly powerful. The sources describe his
parents being, well, profoundly alarmed. They
were. They intervened and essentially forced
his transfer to Paris to finish school, hoping
the distance would break the connection. But
it did. It did the opposite. It solidified his
commitment. He apparently told Brigitte he would
return and marry her. That parental intervention,
it sounds less like a typical teenage drama and
more like a pivotal moment. It proved his determination.
I agree. It shows this unusual focus, a willingness
to defy entrenched societal norms. We see that
again and again in his political career. So they
reconnected later. They reunited after he graduated
from ENA and they married in 2007. He doesn't
have biological children, but she has three adult
children and seven grandchildren. And she was
crucial to his rise. Allies say she helped him
sharpen his public image, his communication style,
essential skills for the disruptor he became.
So he's trained for the civil service, but then
he takes this sharp pivot, high finance, a move
that really provided the capital for his political
independence. Yep. After ENA in 2004, he started
as an inspector in the General Inspectorate of
Finance. But four years later, in 2008, he chose
to break the mold. He paid $50 ,000 to buy himself
out of his government contract. That's a huge
step. It's a clear, highly unusual signal that
he was leaving the state sector, at least for
a while, for the private world. And he went straight.
to the biggest leagues. Yeah. Investment banking.
Rothschild and C. Bonk. And he was a rocket ship
there. By 2010, he's a partner. And here's where
it gets really interesting. The financial peak
for him was handling a massive deal. Nestle's
acquisition of Pfizer's infant nutrition division.
What was the scale of that deal? It was valued
at a colossal euro billion. Managing something
that complex, especially with the world still
recovering from the 2008 crisis, it just cemented
his reputation as a high roller. It instantly
made him a millionaire. Granting him total financial
independence. Exactly. We need to quantify that
because it became such a potent political weapon
for his opponents later. Right. What were the
numbers? Official records show he earned $2 million
between late 2010 and mid -2012 and nearly $3
million between 2009 and 2013. That financial
independence is fundamental. It is. He didn't
need traditional party funding. He could launch
his movement on his own terms. But it also created
the narrative that haunted his presidency, the
criticism that he was the president of the rich,
a man who understood finance maybe better than
the lives of ordinary people. So now we have
the philosopher turned millionaire banker ready
to reenter the political arena. Let's trace his
path back in, starting with his initial kind
of temporary. connection to the traditional political
world. His early political DNA was definitely
on the left, but always the reforming wing. He
was a member of the Socialist Party, the PS,
from 2006 to 2009. And he strongly supported
Francois Hollande in the 2011 primary. And Hollande
rewarded that loyalty, bringing him right into
the core of the executive power structure. Into
the Elysee Palace, yes. In 2012, he was appointed
deputy secretary general, a very senior advisory
role. But the ideological friction started almost
immediately. Because he was pushing for market
-oriented reforms. Exactly. And that put him
at odds with the Socialist Party's deeply held
traditions. What were the specific points of
contention? Can you show us how radical he was
within that structure? Sure. Two crucial examples
from 2012. First, he proposed temporarily increasing
the symbolic 35 -hour workweek to 37 hours. A
huge deal in France. Huge. Second, he pushed
back against planned tax hikes on the highest
earners, arguing it would drive capital out of
the country. And later, he was against regulating
CEO salaries. He was basically a classical liberal
operating inside a socialist government. Sounds
like an impossible position to sustain. It was.
The frustration mounted. He felt he had little
real influence. In June 2014, he resigned. He
was disappointed he didn't get a post in the
first Vales government. But the break lasted
barely two months, a very rapid political rehabilitation.
Two months. In August 2014, Haaland appointed
him to replace the staunchly left -wing Arnaud
Monteberg. The contrast was instant. Macron got
the nickname anti -Monteberg. Because he was
pro -EU and liberal. Exactly. At 36, he was the
youngest economics minister since 1962, and he
immediately stood out. And the centerpiece of
his time there was the Macron Law. You called
it a grab bag. What did it actually do? The Macron
Law. from April 2015, was designed to unlock
the economy. It was a package deal. It liberalized
rules on Sunday and night work, which unions
hated. It eased restrictions on coach travel,
which sparked competition. It reformed regulated
professions like barristers and auctioneers.
It was an unmistakable declaration of intent.
It was. He was going to modernize the French
economy, whether the political establishment
liked it or not. And getting it passed, well,
that created the template for all the political
drama that would follow him, relying on special
constitutional tools. Exactly. Because of deep
division. within his own socialist majority,
Prime Minister Manuel Valls knew it wouldn't
pass a normal vote. So he used the special Article
49 .3 procedure. Let's define 49 .3 clearly for
the listener because it becomes his signature
tool later on. Okay, so in simple terms, Article
49 .3 lets the prime minister adopt a law without
a full vote. But, and this is crucial, it automatically
triggers a motion of no confidence. So the government
is basically staking its entire survival on the
bill. Yes. If the no -confidence motion fails,
the bill passes. If the motion passes, the government
falls and the bill dies. It's the political nuclear
option. You bypass consensus to enforce executive
will. It worked then, and it set him on a collision
course with his own party, which led him to found
his own movement. On April 6, 2016, in his hometown
of Amiens, he founded En Marche. On the move.
An independent, social liberal, fiercely pro
-European movement designed to transcend the
left -right divide. Holland must have been furious.
He was. He immediately saw it as a threat, reprimanded
him for it. Tensions escalated. And by August
2016, Macron had resigned to focus on his presidential
campaign. So by the time the 2017 campaign really
kicked off, he crafted this fascinating identity.
The ultimate outsider who was also the ultimate
insider. He ran on a democratic revolution platform.
He promised to unblock France. And he specifically
criticized Haaland for wanting to be a normal
president. Right. This is where the Jupiterian
idea comes from. Yes. Macron declared France
needed a Jupiterian presidency. He wanted to
be majestic, authoritarian, above the political
fray, drawing directly on his studies of Hegel
and Machiavelli. That unconventional rise immediately
drew criticism, though, that he was being propelled
by forces outside the electorate. For sure. Opponents
on both the far left and far right labeled him
the media candidate. Meaning? They argued he
got extensive favorable coverage because of his
ties to media owners, people who owned Le Monde,
Nouvelle Observateur. The narrative was that
the elite were marketing him like a product,
especially given his background in high finance.
And the 2017 election was also targeted by a
major cyber attack, a sign of the new geopolitical
landscape. The Macron leaks. May 2017, just two
days before the final vote, nine gigabytes of
campaign emails and documents were anonymously
posted online. His team called. called it a massive
and coordinated hack meant to destabilize the
election. And was the attack ever attributed
to anyone? Security firms, Trend and Micro in
particular, later connected the spear phishing
attacks to the infamous Russian hacking group
Fancy Bear. The same group linked to the DNC
hack in the US. The very same. The Kremlin denied
it, of course. But the incident showed that digital
warfare was now integral to major European elections.
And Macron, with his pro -EU, anti -Russian stance,
was a clear target. Despite all that, the controversies
and the hack, he won decisively. But the details
of that victory are telling. He got 66 .1 % of
the vote against Marine Le Pen. It looks like
a landslide. But it wasn't that simple. No. It
was marked by record abstention over 25%. And
8 % of ballots were blank or spoiled. So a huge
chunk of the electorate was voting against the
far right, not enthusiastically for the new president.
That lack of deep popular legitimacy would really
plague his approval ratings for years. So entering
the LZ, Macron has a strong mandate. He quickly
gets a comfortable majority in parliament. And
his first priority was fulfilling that promise
to clean up French politics and assert his Jupiterian
authority. Yes. On domestic policy, his first
win was anti -corruption. He banned elected officials
from hiring family members, which was a direct
response to the fill -on scandal that had derailed
his main conservative competitor. But his administration
immediately ran into trouble on a really personal
issue, which sort of challenged that promise
to lead by example. The proposal for an official
funded first lady role for his wife, Brigitte.
While many countries have that, in France it
was seen as, well... Especially given his Jupiterian
aspirations. Exactly. And contradictory to his
anti -nepotism stance. The backlash was immediate
and huge. An online petition got nearly 290 ,000
signatures in just a few weeks. So he backed
down. He was forced to. He had to abandon the
plan for an official salaried role. It showed
an early sensitivity to public opinion when pushed
hard enough. The main thrust of his early presidency,
though, was the structural overhaul of the labor
market. That was really his life's work at that
point. He aimed to fundamentally shift French
labor relations, move away from the centralized
adversarial system towards a more flexible, consensus
-driven model like you see in Germany or Scandinavia.
So how did he do that? He pushed reforms to empower
negotiation at the company level rather than
national union agreements. And he capped payouts
for dismissals, which was supposed to encourage
companies to hire more readily because the risk
of litigation was lower. And were there any tangible
results from that push before the big protests
began? There were. During this period, the reforms
were credited with a real improvement. Government
figures showed unemployment had dropped by 1
.8%, the biggest drop since 2001. A crucial,
measurable success for his agenda. It was, even
as the political opposition was raging. And yet,
despite the job growth, he got this reputation
that just stuck. President of the rich. That
label was a direct result of his first tax policies.
In 2017, he famously replaced the existing wealth
tax, the ISF, which targeted global assets. With
a new tax that focused only on real estate. Exactly.
By removing financial assets like stocks and
bonds from the wealth tax, opponents immediately
framed it as a massive gift to the financial
elite, his old friends, and it cemented that
president of the rich narrative. That became
the rallying cry for all the protests that followed.
And before the yellow vests even emerged, he
had this massive confrontation with the military
that showed his ruthless determination. The clash
with Chief of General Staff Pierre de Villiers.
July 2017, just weeks into his presidency, Macron
imposed an $850 million cut on the military budget.
And de Villiers publicly objected. He did, citing
readiness concerns. And the confrontation escalated.
De Villiers reportedly told a parliamentary group,
I will not let myself be flaked like this. Wow.
That's unprecedented. Totally. Open defiance
of the commander in chief. Macron accepted his
resignation, replaced him immediately and sent
a clear signal. I am the boss. Dissent will not
be tolerated. That tension between top down reform
and internal resistance, it just exploded in
late 2018 with the yellow vests. That became
the defining feature of his first term. The Gilets
Jaunes protests were a societal explosion. They
started in November 2018, a spontaneous response
to a planned fuel tax increase. It was seen as
punishing working class and rural commuters while
the president of the rich protected his wealthy
friends. The high -vis vest became the symbol
of marginalized France. It did. And the protests
were massive, relentless, lasting well into 2020.
They morphed beyond just fuel tax into a general
rejection of Macron's perceived aloofness and
his whole style of governance. And the impact?
Paris saw constant street battles, vandalism.
It forced Macron to launch the Grand Débat National,
a series of town halls to try and reconnect.
But the protests just hammered his political
capital. His approval rating plummeted to around
25 percent by the end of 2018, a historic low.
And it was in the middle of all this. that he
tried his first major pension reform. Yes, round
one. Announced in late 2019, the plan was incredibly
ambitious. Scrap the 42 separate old professional
pension schemes and create a single, unified,
points -based national system. Which the unions
feared would disadvantage public workers. And
raise the effective retirement age. So it led
to weeks of massive strikes, total paralysis
of public transport. And the political consequence.
The government struggled. They compromised on
the retirement age, but still had to resort to
using Article 49 .3 again to force it through.
And then COVID -19 hit. And the whole thing was
shelved. The entire draft was pulled during the
lockdown in March 2020. The reform died, but
the political poison remained. And then came
the Benalla affair, which shook the very foundations
of the executive's integrity. Oh, the Benalla
affair in 2018 was a huge crisis. Alexander Benalla,
a top member of Macron's personal security team,
was filmed beating a protester while posing as
a cop. The video was explosive, but the real
issue was the cover -up. Exactly. The Élysée
failed to refer the case to prosecutors immediately.
Instead, Benalla just got a mild 15 -day internal
suspension. It caused a political storm. The
opposition claimed the presidential office was
deliberately shielding one of its own from the
law. Shifting gears to foreign policy, Macron
became known for this highly personalized, assertive
diplomatic style. He established a reputation
for aggressive body language, all designed to
project strength. We all remember that power
struggle handshake with Donald Trump at the 2017
NATO summit. It was analyzed globally. It was.
But he wasn't afraid to confront foes either.
When he met Putin at Versailles in 2017, he directly
called out Russia today and Sputnik as Organs
of influence and propaganda, of lying propaganda.
He also strategically navigated the trade tensions
between the U .S. and China, positioning France
as an independent player. That was the 2019 China
pivot. During the height of the U .S.-China trade
war, Macron and Xi Jinping signed deals worth
$40 billion. Including a massive Airbus purchase.
A $30 billion purchase of Airbus planes, yes.
Plus deals on French chicken exports, financial
cooperation. It was a major assertion of French
economic power, showing that France would not
be forced to choose sides. That desire for independence
led directly to the huge diplomatic fallout with
his closest allies, the Ayukas Pact. The AUKUS
deal in September 2021 was a diplomatic explosion,
the deepest rift in French -U .S. relations in
decades. Australia just abruptly canceled its
56 billion submarine deal with France. In favor
of a nuclear sub deal with the U .S. and U .K.
And France reacted with absolute fury. They saw
it as a profound breach of trust, a backstabbing
by key allies. The French response was historic.
It was the diplomatic equivalent of dropping
a nuclear bomb. For the first time in history,
France recalled its ambassadors from both the
United States and Australia. The White House
later had to issue a public statement of regret,
but that event solidified Macron's push for strategic
autonomy. The idea that Europe cannot depend
on the U .S. and must fend for itself. And in
spite of this incredibly turbulent first term,
he still secured reelection in 2022. He became
the first incumbent to win reelection since Chirac
in 2002, again defeating Marine Le Pen. He won
with a healthy 58 .55 percent to 41 .45 percent.
And there's always a but with these numbers.
Here's that critical detail again. The enthusiasm
was missing. The participation rate among registered
voters was just 38 .52 percent. the lowest since
1969. Voters feared Le Pen, but they were deeply
reluctant to endorse Macron. So a mandate defined
by political fatigue, not popular zeal. Exactly.
And finally, before we move to the even more
tumultuous second term, we have to touch on his
other official role, co -prince of Andorra. It's
this unusual inherited title he gets ex officio
as president of France. A fascinating little
anecdote came during the COVID pandemic. The
Andorran government asked France for economic
aid. Macron refused, citing European Central
Bank rules that prevented the Bank of France
from offering loans to another country without
ECB approval. It shows the limits of that historical
power. Macron's second term, starting in 2022,
immediately felt like a whole different political
world. The instability started right away, not
on the streets this time, but in the legislature
with the collapse of his parliamentary majority.
The 2022 legislative election was a complete
disaster for his coalition. It resulted in a
hung parliament, France's first minority government
since 1993. How badly did they do? They fell
38 seats short of the 289 needed for an absolute
majority. And crucially, his key parliamentary
leaders, guys like Richard Ferrand and Christophe
Castaner, lost their own seats. It effectively
decapitated his political structure. Which instantly
meant political gridlock for his new prime minister,
Elizabeth Bourne. Bourne, the second female PM
in French history, led an administration defined
by just extreme legislative pain. Her government
was characterized by the repeated, almost routine
reliance on Article 49 .3. How often did they
use it? Get this statistic. Her cabinet had to
use it 10 times in a row just to pass the 2023
budget. It just highlights the severe instability,
the government's total inability to find consensus
on even core financial laws. This legislative
bottleneck then culminated in the inevitable
second attempt at pension reform, which was,
again, politically explosive. Pension reform
round two, March 2023. The goal was raising the
retirement age from 62 to 64. Macron saw this
as essential for his legacy. But with a minority
parliament, he knew it wouldn't pass. Right.
So the government. for the final time under Borne.
Once again, used Article 49 .3 to force it through
without a final vote. And the public reaction?
Was it worse than 2019? It was explosive. The
reliance on 49 .3 just intensified the massive
nationwide protests and strikes. Images of burning
barricades in Paris, millions on the streets.
But this time, Macron refused to compromise.
The law passed, but the government's legitimacy
was just shredded. Using 49 .3 meant the government
was constantly facing challenges to its very
existence. Absolutely. The born government had
to endure 17 no -confidence motions. She narrowly
survived one in March 2023 by only nine votes.
The government was permanently hanging by a thread.
And the instability wasn't just in parliament.
It spilled violently onto the streets in the
summer of 2023. The Nahil Marzouk riots. Unrest
after the fatal police killing of the 17 -year
-old Nahal M. The riots became widespread and
intense, reflecting deep frustration over policing,
racial inequality, and poverty. And Macron's
administration took a hardline response. Deployed
45 ,000 police officers. The justice minister
advised courts to apply harsher, faster sentences.
And the result? Over 2 ,000 arrests in the first
week alone, many of them minors. It just showed
how quickly the government would use a hard judicial
response to a social flashpoint. The social fabric
was clearly under enormous stress. And amidst
all this, the immigration debate generated a
crisis that splintered his coalition even further.
A major political defeat. The government's initial
immigration bill was unexpectedly defeated in
December 2023. A spectacular debacle. To save
it, they had to negotiate a drastically hardened
version with the conservative Senate. So measures
like quotas and restrictions on family reunification.
Yes. And that compromise meant getting support
from the far right. The final bill passed, thanks
largely to the far right national rally. What
was the political cost of that? It caused a huge
rebellion within Macron's own coalition. His
health minister immediately resigned. It's just
underscored the ideological rifts. Macron was
willing to rely on the far right to govern, which
destroyed his Republican front image. Despite
the chaos, though, he did successfully champion
one major constitutional reform. Yes, a historic
success. In March 2024, he got a constitutional
amendment passed to protect abortion as a guaranteed
freedom. This was the first constitutional reform
in France since 2008 and a significant milestone.
Now we get to the political crisis of 2024 and
2025, a sequence of events, this revolving door
of prime ministers that just has no modern equivalent.
The trigger was the massive defeat in the June
2024 European elections. His group got only 14
.6 % of the vote, almost 17 points behind Le
Pen's RN. And his reaction was immediate and
shocking. He dissolved the National Assembly
and called a snap legislative election. A huge
gamble. That backfired profoundly. It did. His
group placed a distant third. The result was
an even more fragmented hung parliament. Total
gridlock. This led directly to the stunning succession
of short -lived governments. Let's just detail
that rapid succession because this is the heart
of the current crisis. OK, so Prime Minister
Gabriel Attal resigned. Then Macron appointed
the conservative veteran Michel Barnier, hoping
to build a right wing coalition. Barnier lasted
how long? Three months. He tried to pass the
2025 Social Security budget using Article 49
.3. This immediately triggered a vote of no confidence.
And he lost. On December 4th, 2024, the National
Assembly toppled his government. It was an alliance
of the far left and far right. The first French
cabinet to be brought down by parliament since
1962. A total rejection of the president's choice.
And Macron blamed this on an alliance of the
extreme left and extreme right, framing himself
as the victim. Of course. And the chaos continued.
He appointed the centrist veteran Francois Bayrou,
who was himself toppled by a confidence vote
in September 2025. He couldn't unite a stable
base. The instability was reaching farcical levels.
It was. Then Sebastian Le Cornu, the minister
of the armed forces, was appointed PM. He resigned
less than a month later over backlash about his
government's composition. Macron reappointed
him. But the whole sequence, Barnier, Biru, Le
Cornu, it just defines the crisis. A powerful
president fundamentally unable to secure a working
majority. But despite all that domestic chaos,
he remains laser focused on his grand European
foreign policy vision. the strategic eponymy
doctrine. This doctrine is central to his entire
identity. It's born out of those Machiavellian
theories and reinforced by the Akos's betrayal.
He's delivered major speeches calling for Europe
to reduce its dependence on the U .S. and become
a third superpower. And his proposals are ambitious.
Boosting European defense, moving away from U
.S. intelligence, and even reducing reliance
on the U .S. dollar. He's also taken a really
strong, often provocative stance on Ukraine and
Russia. He now calls Russia an existential threat
to Europe. He welcomed Germany's massive rearmament
plan. And regarding Ukraine, he visited Kiev
in 2022 and called neutral nations complicit
in the new imperialism. But the most controversial
moment was suggesting French boots might go on
the ground. Indeed. In February 2024, he controversially
suggested sending NATO ground troops to Ukraine.
It horrified many allies, but it was designed
to inject strategic ambiguity into Russia's calculus.
And he backed that up with hardware. In May 2024,
he gave Ukraine permission to use France's Eskel
-PEG missiles against military sites on Russian
soil. Moving to the Middle East, his position
has also evolved over time. Yes. In October 2023,
he condemned Hamas and supported Israel's right
to self -defense. But as the humanitarian crisis
deepened, he quickly shifted. By November 2023,
he was calling for a ceasefire and urging Israel
to stop bombing Gaza. And in 2025? In July of
2025, he announced France would officially recognize
a Palestinian state at the next UN General Assembly.
A significant shift. Finally, his dynamic with
the U .S., particularly President Trump, it remained
volatile, underscoring the friction in his autonomy
doctrine. Their relationship is purely transactional
and very public. After Israeli strikes on Iran
in June 2025, Macron called for maximum restraint,
a diplomatic rebuke. Then he had this highly
public dispute with Trump over the U .S. president's
abrupt departure from the G7 summit. Jerome publicly
contradicted him. Wrote that Macron always gets
it wrong. Stay tuned. And that was followed by
a substantive policy disagreement. Yes. Macron
quickly called Trump's subsequent airstrikes
on Iranian nuclear sites illegal and counterproductive.
This constant friction shows that even as his
domestic power is collapsing, Macron remains
determined to assert France's independent geopolitical
voice, often in direct opposition to Washington.
What a monumental and, well, paradoxical timeline.
If you were to condense the core of the Emmanuel
Macron story from 2017 to late 2025, it's just
defined by these two dueling forces, the domestic
struggle for legitimacy and this ambitious, unyielding
drive for global influence. Precisely. He was
the philosopher. The banker, the outsider, who
won two terms by shattering the traditional system.
Yet his second term has been defined by this
deep structural rejection from the parliament.
This gridlock has created unprecedented instability.
Forcing him to rely on constitutional bypasses
like 49 .3 and to manage this chaotic series
of short -lived governments, Barnier, Beirut,
Le Cornu, in a way France hasn't seen in over
six decades. But internationally, the chaotic
domestic scene hasn't slowed his ambition one
bit. He remains arguably the most forceful advocate
for a strong, strategically autonomous Europe.
He's trying to position the EU as a third superpower,
independent of the U .S. He seems to believe
his mission just transcends his approval ratings.
It's the ultimate paradox. The man who wants
Europe to be a global power acts as a sovereign
leader, while at home he runs a state that is
structurally incapable of passing a budget without
a constitutional threat. all mean for the future,
especially for the rest of Europe? And here's
where it gets really interesting. And this is
the provocative thought we want to leave you
with. If France's political system continues
to reject stability, forcing a powerful president
to rely on constitutional bypasses and unstable
governments that can fall with a simple vote.
What are the long term implications for France's
credibility as the leader pushing for that European
independence, for the strategic autonomy doctrine
on the global stage? Is Macron's personal ambition
strong enough to outweigh the structural paralysis
of the nation he leads?