It was in 1984, and the formidable political animal that was French Communist Party leader Georges Marchais tore apart his former ally and then opponent Pierre Juquin with just one phrase.
Juquin had dared to comment on the latest electoral losses of the party, which was still firmly Stalinist and locked down, calling for a “full debate with no taboo”. Marchais immediately sent Juquin into the political wilderness with his snap back: “Comrade Taboo is unhappy because we don’t want to talk with him.”
To attack true political taboos can sometimes be a costly business. Is French economy minister Emmanuel Macron aware of the fact? No doubt he is, just as he cannot be unaware that, as when Juquin stood up against Marchais, he himself is faced with a weak government and a toothless president. All of which leaves him with some margin for impertinent behaviour.
The economy minister, in his attempts to exist media-wise, has taken on the role of “comrade taboo”. But the question is to what political project does he want to present? After having sung the praises of Joan of Arc and an eternal France when he was guest of honour on May 8th at a ceremony of monarchic style in Orleans to celebrate the town’s liberation from the English by the heroine in 1429, he has now moved up a step. On Friday, he chose to meet and re-legitimise that old figure of the Orleanist, fundamentalist and xenophobic far-right, Philippe de Villiers.
While joining Philippe de Villiers in the festivities at the Puy-du-Fou historical theme park which de Villiers created in his fiefdom of La Vendee in western France (and where, among other attractions, there is an animated celebration of the 1793-1796 royalist and Catholic insurrection against the revolutionary authorities), Macron was clearly pleased with the audacious nature of his visit to the site, the first by any minister of a left-wing government for 30 years. While Macron even hailed de Villiers as a “cultural entrepreneur”, there is much that can be said about how the de Villiers made the theme park a prosperous family affair after it was for a long time the recipient of subsidies paid from the public purse.
Not to mention how, in 2014, just months after Russia annexed Crimea, de Villiers travelled to Sochi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to sell him two theme parks. The video below (in French) shows the two men meeting together at a press conference with the Russian media, in which de Villiers pronounces an astonishing tribute to Putin, notably telling him that “in the heart of many Europeans”, Putin is held in “much more esteem and consideration and affection than many European leaders”.
But that was not the issue that interested Emmanuel Macron on Friday, the minister being primarily concerned with forming a national union with a man who for more than 30 years embodies the worst side of public debate, along with that other far-right family, the Le Pens. And given that to break with taboos is apparently all that is needed to put forward a programme and to represent modernity, Macron, in the middle of it all on Friday, returned to his favourite exercise: “Honesty requires me to tell you that I am not socialist,” he told reporters. “I am in a government of the Left, but where’s the importance [of that]?” Earlier, the economy minister had paid his respects to French statesman Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), a symbolic figure for current Prime Minister Manuel Valls, by visiting Clemenceau’s nearby tomb, where he declared: “No-one has the monopoly of anything at all. I have no model and no refuge.”
Macron, a man of transgression, then. Another example? He also knows how to put on a show of bling-bling when needed, in a way of showing that even Nicolas Sarkozy won’t put one over him. Which is what was behind the cover story on last week’s Paris-Match magazine (see below), which staged a photo shoot of he and his wife on the beach during what it called an “amorous vacation”.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
It was a cover story that was identical to that which the magazine published one year ago (see below), at the same high-point of the summer, and which disclosed the “amorous break” enjoyed by Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
How audacious! But by using all the old media tricks to maintain a presence, our little “comrade taboo” succeeds in discrediting a little more the innovative style he pretends to represent. What he promotes as a programme of “transcending the divides and sterile oppositions”, itself so very reminiscent of the project set out by former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in his 1992 book Deux Français sur trois (meaning “Two out of every three French people), simply underlines the empty abyss of an approach that is nothing but PR. At a moment when the far-right Front National party, led by Marine Le Pen, appears as a major danger, and when Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to transform the conservative Right into a far-right, Emmanual Macron talks to us about “reconciling” France, without any word of opposition against those who seek to fracture our democracy and society.
The minister cannot ignore the fact that he exists only because of the extreme weakness of the government and those to its Left. Macron wants to build his political corner by drawing attention to this through little touches and shows of being different, rather than leading a frontal combat with the Right and far-right. French President François Hollande shows a recognition of this, in his own way, in a book published this week of transcripted conversations with two journalists (‘Conversations privées avec le président’). “Macron is popular above all because he is not political [...] because he is new [...] because he transgresses a certain number of divisions or rules in political life,” Hollande is quoted as saying.
Hollande and his Elysée Palace advisors may believe that, at an opportune moment, this manufactured image of Macron’s could actually help the outgoing president’s re-election bid in May 2017. Empty of any projects, empty phrases, political manoeuvring and made-up picture opportunities; so it is, then, life at the heart of the a government approaching its end, holed up in its political bubble and which still believes it can sidestep reality to survive.
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- The French version of this opinion article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse