The Macron-Sánchez dialectic
1. “In Barcelona, a summit with openly anti-Trump overtones, in the wake of Pedro Sánchez”, titled Le Monde. And Emmanuel Macron has become uneasy, fearing that the Spanish president's initiative might take hold, and has begun to mobilize European leaders. While Sánchez was sharing a table with President Lula, Macron was with Germany's Friedrich Merz, Britain's Keir Starmer, and Italy's Giorgia Meloni.
After his shipwreck in France, where his authority as president has long been in decline, Macron is looking to the international stage for a way to make himself heard again. And, like Sánchez, he has seen an opportunity in Trump's delusions: someone has to start imposing common sense, to return to the principle of reality. The “No to war” seems to have begun to awaken European public opinion. Macron has understood that it was not worth falling asleep, lest the left take advantage of the apathy of a right that struggles so much to overcome its reverential fear of the American president. And he has set in motion before Sánchez made too much progress, lest the European left capitalize on this crisis. Macron is seeking allies to bring European institutions to a position of consensus.
For now, in France, the most forceful statement has come from Bruno Retailleau, the Republicans' candidate for the 2027 presidential election and a personal enemy of President Macron. He has stated that he wants to see Spain “excluded from European nations” for its immigration policy: “The mass regularization as Sánchez has carried it out cannot be tolerated. [...] Do not be fooled”. The far-right speaks plainly.
2. In any case, personalities aside and beyond Macron's frustration or Pedro Sánchez's political ambition, what is clear is that in Europe there are those who have begun to understand that we are in a moment of opportunity for a certain awakening of the left before the reactionary wave imposes itself sufficiently and that democratic right-wing parties are increasingly overwhelmed. Macron appeals to the European right through institutional channels when it is increasingly close to capitulating to the far-right. Sánchez points to a path, still far from building solid alliances, which for now does not go much beyond ties between Latin Americans. How should Macron's reaction be understood? As an opportunity to rehabilitate himself —difficult to imagine given the level of wear and tear and cornering he is in (he has no recognition even in France)— or simply as an attempt to lead the radicalization of the European conservative space, through fear and threat? What does Macron intend by signaling Sánchez as a danger? To group European liberal right-wing parties without yielding to the far-right, taking advantage of Trump's delusions that offend and disorient the liberal conservative sector, and thus, reactivate liberal democracy? Or simply to contribute to creating a sense of risk and devaluation of conservative values, seeking to become the leader of a certain right-left radicalization?
Macron's problem is that he is reaching his peak very young. Before the age of fifty, he will be a former President of the Republic. What limits does this condition have? Is it realistic for Macron to think that, from here on, he can return to the forefront of the scene and lead a new project? Or is his reaction to Sánchez strictly ideological? Does he seek to reactivate the right/left opposition at a time when Europe is under the threat of post-democratic authoritarianism, now that, paradoxically, war and the delusions of Trump and his acolytes have caused, slowly, some left-wing parties to awaken and the progressive discourse to breathe again? That is, does Macron bet on a step forward, in dialectical confrontation with the left, to rebuild common ground, or does he yield to the authoritarian dynamic while waiting for Trump to disappear and for the right-wing parties to be able to discreetly impose their hegemony?