Emmanuel Macron is locked in a public battle with France’s senior general over military spending cuts as he faces his toughest opposition yet to proposed austerity measures, reports The Financial Times.
The dispute threatens to become a political crisis as speculation mounts that General Pierre de Villiers, the highly regarded chief of staff, might step down in protest this week ahead of a formal meeting with the French president on Friday.
The spat, over a proposed 850 million-euros worth of military cuts, highlights the scale of the challenge facing Mr Macron as he targets 60 billion-euros worth of savings over five years while keeping an election pledge to cut taxes.
The disagreement started when Mr Macron’s government last week said it wanted to cut the 2017 defence budget in an effort to bring the country’s deficit below the EU’s limit of three percent of gross domestic product.
This followed a warning from the state auditor last month that there was a 9 billion-euro hole in country’s finances and that the government needed to find 4 billion-euros worth of new savings this year to meet the EU target.
The proposed cuts reportedly prompted Gen de Villiers to tell a parliament committee: “I may be stupid, but I know when I’m being had.”
The general followed this up with a Facebook post last Friday which did not mention Mr Macron directly but which was seen as another challenge: “No one deserves to be blindly followed,” he wrote.
His intervention is particularly striking in France because — unlike other parts of the French state — the military has a long history of refraining from comment on political decisions. The army is often referred to as “la grande muette” — “the great and silent” in French political life.
Gen de Villiers’ remarks earned a public rebuke from Mr Macron. “For me it is undignified to wash dirty linen in public,” he said on Friday in an address to the army. “I am your leader,” he added. “I need no pressure, no comment.”
But Mr Macron has been forced on the defensive, with criticism coming from all sides, including his own party. Jean-Jacques Bridey, chairman of the parliamentary committee on defence and a Macron ally, last week said he regretted the proposed cuts “while our men risk their lives every day”.
Read more of this report from The Financial Times.
See also: How Macron's row with top general lifts curtain on labour law reforms