It was May 2017, when naive France entrusted itself to the care of a promising young man, the vaunted moralizer, the aspiring revolutionary, the new Robespierre. In Paris and its environs, they would have done better to read the biographies of France’s two sons. Robespierre came from the provinces, Macron went from the corridors of the Rothschild Bank, and one thing is sure: “You can’t make a career in a certain type of bank unless you’re as cunning as a fox who doesn’t care about anyone.” At the time, Macron was fully aware of the poor health of the traditional parties and entered the electoral war like Pippo Inzaghi[1] did in the opposition penalty areas.
While Pippo Inzaghi was utterly inept at playing football, he was unbeatable in terms of opportunism. Macron applied the same typical stratagem to his political project as the Italian football striker. Please keep your eyes and ears open, and the opportunity will present itself. Well, over the course of these eight years, opportunities abounded (opportunities to save his own job), and that crafty Macron was clever enough to seize them all. This is another talent, certainly one I intensely dislike, but that’s the way things are in this world. Some are born to be Charles Baudelaire or Victor Hugo, and some are born to be Emmanuel Macron.
Let’s settle accounts with the past. Back then, Hollande had to be forgotten (a mission far from impossible), Marine Le Pen was still green, and the young man with the sly smile had an easy time fooling the French, from Carcassonne to Lens. Now, it makes me smile when I think of his first legislative proposal, the one for the moralization of public life; a proposal that came from a man who, throughout his presidency, demonstrated his attachment to his office like a mussel to a rock.