Globalist international media outlets have been struggling to come to terms with seeing Emmanuel Macron’s popularity sink while Donald Trump’s America prospers, with The Guardian warning the development is “worrying for those in Europe’s pro-globalisation camp who placed their faith in [Macron] to halt the wave of populism”.
With a major Paris Match survey this week revealing Macron’s approval rating has dropped to just 31 percent — making him even less liked than his deeply unpopular Socialist predecessor François Hollande at this stage of his presidency— The Guardian lamented that developments in France may represent “a dire warning to ‘globalists’”.
“This ‘Jupiter’, who embodied newness, youth and modernity, is now bogged down in forced reshuffles and goings-on that look very much like old-fashioned political manoeuvrings,” fretted Christophe Guilluy, writing in the left-liberal British broadsheet.
“Worse, despite claiming he would lead France to become the ‘start-up nation’, economic performance is poor. Growth is stagnant, unemployment isn’t falling and poverty is taking a firm hold.”
The left-wing French geographer and author, who charges populism stems from politicians’ blindness to the concerns of voters outside of a ‘metropolitan bubble’, said Macron’s declining popularity is not only of concern to the President but to the hopes of everyone for whom Britain’s vote for Brexit, and Americans’ election of Trump, represented catastrophic “twin shocks” to the liberal world order.
Macron Tells Denmark ‘No Such Thing as a True Dane, True Frenchman’ https://t.co/9wYdfcdHUW
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 30, 2018
“Macron’s fate could have far-reaching consequences for Europe’s political future,” Guilluy continues, highlighting how collapsing support for the globalist golden boy in France has persisted, “at a time when Trump’s popularity among his voters is relatively stable by comparison and the American economy is growing”.
Analysing what has gone wrong for the French leader — who the international press hailed as a hero of “centrism” after his emergence as a contender in the 2016 French election — compared to media bête noire Donald Trump, Guilluy posited that the pair’s contrasting fortunes come down to how the latter “appears to be delivering what his voters want” while “Macron is pushing through more and more measures that go against the wishes of his”.
In their respective elections, both leaders “moved beyond the old left-right divide” and met with success at the polls after identifying as a problem “the disappearance of the old Western middle class”, according to the author.
But while Macron has acted “to bring the country into line with” global elites’ designs for the French economy, making reforms that have provoked outcry from pensioners and unions, Guilluy notes that “Trump, by contrast, concluded that globalisation was the problem, and that the economic model it is based on would have to be reined in”.
Naming Angela Merkel as another example of “Europe’s globalising class” whose “determination to accelerate the adaptation of western societies to globalisation automatically condemns them to political unpopularity”, the writer said the French and German leaders “limit themselves to supporting and managing implementation of the globalised economic model”.
Globalist Grip Weakens in Europe as Merkel and Macron Tank in the Polls https://t.co/lBktuGmxQ9
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 5, 2018
“With opinion polarising as it is now, such political passivity is suicidal. In France, voters are looking to President Macron to show that he can drive the political agenda, not just be a supporting actor to a movement that only benefits a minority,” Guilluy argues.
Macron has certainly been driving a political agenda in recent weeks, as he announced — much to the adulation of international news outlets — his plans to kill nationalism in Europe by forming a pro-globalisation front ahead of EU elections which will transform the bloc into an NGO-led model revolving around so-called human rights.
Declaring himself the “chief adversary” of the continent’s populists, including Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán — whose highlighting of his country’s Christian faith was deemed a particular affront to “European values” by the French president — Macron identified next May’s EU Parliament elections as a battleground between pro-national sovereignty conservatism and open borders globalism.
But while the internationalist figure is “treated like a rock star” for his “liberalising, pro-business experiment” by supporters, according to the Financial Times, polling shows support for Macron is in decline as well as backing for his En Marche (Forward) party.
The Paris Match survey showed support for the “centrist”, globalist party has slipped from 23 points in June last year to 20, leaving it only three ahead of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (National Rally, formerly Front National), while support for the centre-right Republicains (Republicans) held steady at 15 percent and backing for the far-left populist France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France) movement rose to 14 percent.
Macron Denies Disgraced Moroccan Bodyguard was Gay Lover, Had Access to Nuclear Codes https://t.co/CzGt4F72WT
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 28, 2018
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