Reading The Last President of Europe is like rewatching a Netflix series about the fluke election of an ambitious, dynamic young man to France’s highest office. We’ve seen the movie, but the plot was complicated.
Relying on unusual access to the Élysée and political circles in Washington, William Drozdiak, a veteran foreign correspondent and fellow at the Brookings Institute, lights up obscure corners with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and the wisdom of hindsight. He compensates for an occasionally dull narrative with faultless accuracy and documentation. His text is an indispensable reference book for the first half of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.
This reviewer found the chapter titled Dealing with the Donald most fascinating, though that may be more because of Donald Trump’s awfulness than Emmanuel Macron’s Sisyphean efforts to make the US president act like a reasonable, responsible leader.
Macron’s European colleagues refer to him as the Trump Whisperer. But his attempts to persuade Trump to respect international agreements on climate change and the Iranian nuclear programme failed. Trump didn’t even have the courtesy to telephone Macron before announcing the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, a move that put French soldiers in danger.
Macron perseveres because he is convinced that ties between France, Europe and the US are too important to allow Trump to destroy them. Ireland’s government has adopted the same philosophy.
When Trump invited Macron to Washington for a state visit in April 2018, he stunned the French leader by suggesting France should leave the European Union and enter a privileged trade deal with the US. France is a founding member of the EU. Macron is the foremost proponent of EU integration. There could not be a more telling demonstration of Trump’s utter ignorance of international relations.
In the same Oval Office conversation, Trump called German chancellor Angela Merkel “nothing but a loser.” He later told a European prime minister he couldn’t bear being around Merkel because “that woman embodies everything that I hate.”
Trump’s petty animosity may explain why Merkel scuppered his attempt to hold a self-aggrandising G7 summit in Washington this June. Merkel used the pretext of the Covid-19 pandemic, but she was really refusing to serve as a prop for Trump’s re-election campaign.
Macron’s relationship with Merkel is also well chronicled. Merkel dressed up and put on makeup for Macron’s visit to Berlin on his first day in office. She is the same age as Macron’s wife, Brigitte. A close aide to the French president remarked to Drozdiak that “he has a lot of experience and feels very comfortable with women who are 24 years older than him”.
Despite promising beginnings, the relationship bogged down. Macron was exasperated by Merkel’s slowness and indecision, and what he saw as her lack of vision for Europe. She tired of his impetuousness and rude habit of being late for everything, and she knew his rapid-fire ideas for Europe stood little chance of being approved by EU heads of state and government.
The book includes a partial list of 25 European initiatives proposed by Macron. A Slovakian minister likened Macron’s aspirations for Europe to climbing Mount Everest without an oxygen mask.
The book went to print before Merkel’s Pauline conversion to European solidarity during the pandemic. Even before his election, Macron had pleaded with Germany to stop obsessing over balanced budgets and stop regarding the EU as a market for German-manufactured goods. Instead, he wanted Germany to invest in the common good. German commentators asked why they should share with spendthrift southern Europeans who want to retire early and go on cruises.
On May 18th, Macron and Merkel proposed a €500 billion recovery fund to help EU countries stricken by the pandemic. For the first time, Germany accepted the principle of mutualised debt in the EU. Merkel was credited with political courage, as she was during the 2015 refugee crisis. But her change of heart would not have occurred without Macron.
Almost by default, Macron has emerged as the primary defender of liberal democracy and multilateralism, at odds with Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán and populist nationalist clones across the continent. “We know that civilisations can disappear, as well as countries,” Macron warned Drozdiak. “Europe, too, can disappear.”
Drozdiak’s subtitle, referring to Macron’s mission to save the world, might seem overblown. Yet he shines compared with the men referred to as “the gang of four” by Le Monde editorialist Alain Frachon. The autocratic rulers of the US, China, India and Russia have ushered in a Darwinian international system where might makes right and presidents are the virtual owners of their countries.
Macron’s standing at home pales compared with his stature abroad. He had an incredible run of bad luck from the beginning, with the scandal of his bodyguard beating up protestors, a violent revolt by “yellow vests” from the provinces, strikes against pension reform that paralysed the country last winter, and now the Covid-19 epidemic.
During the gilets jaunes protests, crowds carried mock guillotines and effigies of Macron, depicting him with knife wounds, in chains, covered in blood or with a noose dangling around his neck.
Drozdiak asked Macron what had surprised him most about his first two years in office. “I would say the hatred,” Macron replied.
During the gilets jaunes revolt, and again when his adminstration was seen to have mismanaged the epidemic, Macron professed to have learned humility. He came to office with the hope of persuading the French to embrace globalisation. He now emphasises French and EU sovereignty. He wanted to loosen the grip of the state over French life. The state has never been more prevalent. He had promised to be a “Jupiterian” president. Now he speaks of devolving authority to local government.
Macron often says we live in a tragic era. The possible failure of his presidency would be one of the greatest tragedies of all, for Europe as well as France.
