Macron in recent months has become more cautious, balking at proposals that risk generating a backlash in France, and more prickly with regard to proposals he doesn’t control. France has instead poured its energy into slashing red tape.
In recent weeks the French leader has been pushing for more controls on migration and for red tape to be slashed, while lobbying for new rules to keep children off social media and bidding to create carveouts for automakers on green targets. Hardly the stuff of European dreams.
“This Macron has been consumed by domestic troubles,” said an EU diplomat. “He is no longer the European champion we once knew.”
Not the same man(u)
When it comes to the changes the European Union has seen in the last decade, it’s hard to understate Macron’s influence and foresight. Speaking at the Sorbonne University in 2017, he argued forcefully for a more muscular Europe that wasn’t so dependent on partners overseas, either for manufactured goods or for its own defense.
His call fell on deaf ears at the time. Today, however, the European Commission and leaders across the bloc preach Macron’s gospel of “strategic autonomy” as they try to diversify away from China and beef up the continent’s military capacities in the face of Russian aggression and American military retrenchment.
Macron earned the nickname of the EU’s “think-tanker in chief,” and his blizzard of initiatives and ideas for reforming Europe defined his early tenure as a leader on the world stage.