Just hours after naming the conservative Edouard Philippe as his prime minister on Monday, France’s new president Emmanuel Macron flew off to pay a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She, like European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, has hailed the election of pro-EU Macron, and notably his announced structural reforms of France’s economy, which are at the heart of his political programme. Macron considers they represent a panacea for the ills in French society, but are they really appropriate to the country’s economic situation? Romaric Godin weighs up the widely different views on the mantra that there is no alternative to “structural reforms”.
Emmanuel Macron, who officially began his five-year term of office as French president on Sunday, has a busy agenda ahead, and not the least of his pressing tasks is his intention to rapidly implement the “structural reforms” that were at the heart of his campaign manifesto. Indeed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker underlined the point just hours after his election victory on May 7th.
