Analysis

Don’t Read Too Much into Macron’s Falling Popularity

The president loses support from the people who would be hurt by his reforms.

Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron arrives at the Elysée Palace in Paris for his inauguration as president of France, May 14 (Elysée/Nathalie Bauer)

There is a bit of schadenfraude on the far left and the right about French president Emmanuel Macron’s approval rating, which has sunk from 64 to 54 percent in one month. See, Marxists and conservatives howl, the Little Napoleon is already disappointing the French.

They’re probably getting ahead of themselves.

The Guardian reports:

Disapproval is strongest among certain demographics — civil servants, pensioners and supporters of the Mouvement démocrate party.

Which is hardly surprising when Macron intends to fire tens of thousands of bureaucrats, has proposed to bring public-sector pensions in line with those in the private sector and lost three ministers of the Democratic Movement to a spending scandal.

This is what Macron campaigned on, though: shrinking the state and cleaning up French politics. It’s what a majority of voters want, even if it might upset some constituencies in the short term.

Fortunately, Macron looks like a man who takes the long view.