Macron’s Honeymoon Comes to a Halt
that We’ve got a conjunction of discontent,
7, 2017
PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron, who upended France’s political establishment with his election in May, is breaking ground again,
but in an unwelcome way: a rapid and nearly unequaled drop in the polls.
He was booed by workers when he visited a threatened auto-parts factory in central France, not helping himself there by proclaiming
that he was no "Father Christmas." His abrupt handling of General de Villiers, a man nearly 30 years his senior — the president let it be known that he was furious at the general’s criticism of cuts to the military budget — was seen as "authoritarian," a word that recurred in French press accounts.
So you have got to put all this in perspective." Mr. Macron’s fierce champions in Parliament — the weakened opposition derides them for being mere rubber-stamp "robots" bolstering a personality cult — insist
that the poll drop is temporary, and reflects France’s impatience for results.
Then, the president coupled television images of himself posing with military — on a submarine
and with French troops in Mali — with the military budget cut.
Sciences Po said that The problem with a very presidentialized system is that the president takes everything on his shoulders, and he pays the price,