Haughty defiance has become Emmanuel Macron’s go-to tone during a second term marred by chaos, acrimony and recrimination. During his prime-time television address to the French nation last week, following the toppling of the centre-right prime minister he appointed only three months ago, Mr Macron loftily declined to take responsibility for France’s worst political crisis in decades.
“Some people are tempted to blame me for this situation,” the president acidly observed after accepting Michel Barnier’s resignation. “It’s much more comfortable.” In fact, he suggested, responsibility lay entirely with the political forces who, in delivering the first no-confidence judgment on a government since 1961, had committed an “anti-republican” act of sabotage. The leftwing daily Libération offered a pithy and apt two-word headline riposte to such presidential hauteur: “Flagrant déni” (“In flagrant denial”).
