The 'macronia' story has already been blown out of proportion

1. Life is hard and often passes over those who boast the most. The end of the macronia He arrives with an unprecedented failure in history: a government that lasted just one day. The new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, in office since September 10, needed a month to form the executive and announced his resignation just when it was time to present it. Most of the new ministers were already ministers under François Bayrou. What could be expected again? Unable to reach an agreement with the center-left, the right, more divided than ever and increasingly cornered by the far right, lives in the dead end of neighborhood rivalries.

After this spectacle, can President Emmanuel Macron's diminished credibility ask for another extension? Self-absorbed in his failure, he gave the prime minister two days' worth of time, thus prolonging the agony. He triumphed with the promise of leading the French right to a liberal paradise, breaking with the Gaullist tradition, and has ended in impotence. He intends to set the pace, but the country hasn't followed his lead for some time. This risks causing Le Pen and the far right to capitalize on the confusion. Has the time come to call elections? The question is: legislative or presidential? Given the results of Emmanuel Macron's last term, it would seem more appropriate to go to the presidential elections and start anew, but it would be a surprise if the president showed that lucidity. And all this with Marine Le Pen lurking: "The farce has gone on too long," she said, and it's time to "return to the polls."

France has become the icon of the difficulty of governing liberal democracies at a time of radicalization of the right and blurring of the left. "The composition of the government does not reflect the promised rupture," said the Republican Bruno Retailleau, a representative figure of the most conservative sector of the Republican right. Are you sure he and Macron shared a promise?

2. Emmanuel Macron, aiming to evolve the Fifth Republic toward a neoliberalism with a certain French sophistication, has ended up trapped in the current of authoritarian radicalization experienced by European conservatives. What is the problem that worries Lecornu in trying to form a government? He has two paths: attract Le Pen or look to the center-left. An alliance with the far right would be the definitive capitulation to the neo-fascist wave. Entering into play with the socialists would be too much for Macron, who has done everything to ensure this never happened. And the left is still in turmoil: many things remain to be understood. It is surely painful for the president to have to recognize that he cannot climb out of the hole alone. His authority is waning day by day.

Emmanuel Macron arrived very young and will have burned through his political life rapidly. He has all the potential to be, before turning 50, a former president of the Republic for life. A burden that is not easy to bear. And it will be interesting to see how he will cope when it comes to accepting that his place is beyond politics: the altarpiece of photos of former presidents.

3. However, his career and his figure are highly representative of the shift in the economic and political model that Europe (and the United States) has undergone in recent years. With blatantly different sensibilities, from rudeness to snobbery, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron will remain political icons of the transition from industrial to financial and digital capitalism. The French president completed the transition from Gaullism—state conservatism—to neoliberalism, after Nicolas Sarkozy began the operation to dismantle the Fifth Republic. And now he finds himself caught between the authoritarian shift of the right and the hesitant return of the Socialists, with Mélenchon's reactionary populist left raising eyebrows.

I have etched in my memory the inauguration of Emmanuel Macron as president with a solo parade through the halls of the Louvre, four and a half minutes at a solemn pace, with a camera in front of him framing his march, walking towards the stage of his proclamation. A curious way of accommodating his ego to the exceptionality of the presidential figure, undoubtedly influenced by the idea of the magnitude that General de Gaulle proclaimed.

Ironically, it was a young disciple of Paul Ricoeur, just as Macron was, who embodied the decline of the Fifth Republic, after working hard to get France to embrace the neoliberal revolution, and just when Trump has seized them to mortally wound democratic institutions. Is this Macron's destiny, or will he react in time to give France the necessary jolt, without giving in to the anti-democratic impulses that threaten Europe? When you lose track of limits, when you think you have everything within reach of your whims, these things happen. Here's a cat, here's a dog, the tale of the macronia has already melted.