In op-eds in newspapers across the continent, French president Emmanuel Macron has called for a renewal, or renaissance, of the European project.

It is his second big push for EU reform since his speech at the Sorbonne in September 2017.

At the time, I divided Macron’s proposals, which ranged from a common eurozone budget to a single European asylum office, into the difficult, doable and low-hanging fruit. (I didn’t get everything right; there is still no single European asylum policy but there will be a eurozone budget, if a much smaller one than Macron envisaged.)

Let’s use the same division this time. Read more “How Likely Is Macron’s European Renaissance?”

I don’t get the liberal handwringing about Emmanuel Macron’s falling popularity.

A few recent examples:

• The Financial Times fears that the French president is all that is standing between us and illiberal strongmen.
• The Guardian argues that his liberal rhetoric is not backed up by action.
• Der Spiegel predicts that Macron could lose his unofficial status as the flagship politician of the West.

I’ve argued before that polls are unlikely to keep the Frenchman up at night. The opposition still hasn’t got its act together and the next presidential election isn’t until 2022. That gives Macron plenty of time to repair his public image and for his now-divisive reforms to start bearing fruit. Read more “Don’t Panic About Macron’s Falling Popularity”