The re-election prospects for France’s weakened president, François Hollande, clouded further Tuesday night as his economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, all but stepped into the ring against him in next year’s presidential elections at a crowded rally in central Paris, reports The New York Times.
Mr. Hollande’s record-breaking unpopularity in a country troubled by a stagnant economy and fears of new terrorist attacks makes him one of the shakiest of European leaders.
Already, he has been forced to agree to a primary among leftist parties, including his own Socialists, to decide the 2017 candidate — a first for a sitting president.
Polls show him far behind veteran politicians from France’s traditional Right. At the same time, Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National is steadily advancing in a climate of rising populism both in Europe and the United States.
Now the restive Mr. Macron, 38, the youngest man in Mr. Hollande’s cabinet, can be counted as a new element in Mr. Hollande’s growing political woes. On Tuesday, he stepped close to the edge of declaring his own independent candidacy for next year.
Mr. Macron, a former banker, has spent two years questioning socialist orthodoxy on doctrines like the 35-hour workweek and ironclad job protections, and this spring he founded his own political movement, En Marche, or On Our Way.
Until government colleagues began giving him the cold shoulder over his undisguised political ambitions, he had been the standard-bearer for the pro-capitalism wing of the Socialists.
But Tuesday night, he cast away allegiance to the party, and in over an hour of lofty rhetoric, Mr. Macron repeatedly suggested in front of thousands of cheering supporters that he was the man “to change the country.”
He cast himself as an iconoclast willing to upset the establishment.
The re-election prospects for France’s weakened president, François Hollande, clouded further Tuesday night as his economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, all but stepped into the ring against him in next year’s presidential elections at a crowded rally in central Paris.
Mr. Hollande’s record-breaking unpopularity in a country troubled by a stagnant economy and fears of new terrorist attacks makes him one of the shakiest of European leaders.
Already, he has been forced to agree to a primary among leftist parties, including his own Socialists, to decide the 2017 candidate — a first for a sitting president.
Polls show him far behind veteran politicians from France’s traditional right. At the same time, Marine Le Pen of the far-right Front National is steadily advancing in a climate of rising populism both in Europe and the United States.
Now the restive Mr. Macron, 38, the youngest man in Mr. Hollande’s cabinet, can be counted as a new element in Mr. Hollande’s growing political woes. On Tuesday, he stepped close to the edge of declaring his own independent candidacy for next year.
Mr. Macron, a former banker, has spent two years questioning socialist orthodoxy on doctrines like the 35-hour workweek and ironclad job protections, and this spring he founded his own political movement, En Marche, or On Our Way.
Until government colleagues began giving him the cold shoulder over his undisguised political ambitions, he had been the standard-bearer for the pro-capitalism wing of the socialists.
But Tuesday night, he cast away allegiance to the party, and in over an hour of lofty rhetoric, Mr. Macron repeatedly suggested in front of thousands of cheering supporters that he was the man “to change the country.”
He cast himself as an iconoclast willing to upset the establishment.
The government is adopting the same strategy for the current bill that would further loosen labour laws, as it is unable to even get a majority of socialists in Parliament to support it.
Indeed, angry anti-Macron union demonstrators besieged the Left Bank meeting hall where the economy minister spoke Tuesday night, forcing his supporters to run a gantlet of police officers and protesters.
Mr. Macron, repeatedly casting himself and his movement as France’s top — perhaps only — change agents, called En Marche an “assembly of progressives” that “believes in liberty and justice.”
But the crowd Tuesday night, which seemed affluent and monochromatic, did not appear to reflect the multicultural reality of urban and suburban France.
Mr. Macron was introduced by an enthusiastic young woman who described herself as an “entrepreneur” who had spent six years in Silicon Valley.
Mr. Macron has irritated his colleagues with his ambition — “It’s time for all this to stop,” his boss, Prime Minister Manuel Valls, was heard muttering Tuesday afternoon — and at the rally, the young minister stopped just short of gratifying his supporters.
He did not overtly declare his candidacy, and he did not resign from the government, as some within it are saying he must do.
But he came very close. “Nothing can stop this movement now,” he said to cheers. “This movement, we will carry it together to 2017, and all the way to victory!” he shouted, his voice cracking at times.