Emmanuel Macron, l'ENA, and the old weird France
Paul Wells: Macron is closing the school known for churning out presidents, prime ministers and top public servants. What's behind this assault on what made him?
April 14, 2021 Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron visit a hospital in Normandy, on April 5, 2018 (CHRISTOPHE ENA/AFP via Getty Images)
We haven’t updated you on French President Emmanuel Macron in a while. It’s not going great. The next presidential election is a year away and polls suggest Macron could lose to Marine Le Pen, leader of the populist Ralliement National, the successor to her father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National. The older Le Pen made it to the second round of presidential elections in 2002, the younger in 2017. Each time respectable opinion told French voters they must vote against Le Pen to save the Republic; both times voters did as they were told. The second time the result was Macron’s presidency. He can’t be sure it will work again. He’d become France’s third consecutive one-term president. His successor would open a can of worms. A belated sequel to Trump and Brexit.