Jupiter’s Gamble
President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and President Emmanuel Macron of France at a bilateral meeting Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Official White House photo, courtesy of Shealah Craighead.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s shocking decision—as an ideological centrist in an increasingly extremist nation—to call for legislative elections this past summer amidst a surge in support for the right-wing populist National Rally party did more than just dissolve the National Assembly. It also shattered Macron’s centrist coalition, precipitating the end of “Macronism” and the preeminence of French populism.
In 2017, a 39-year-old Macron ascended to power by dismantling the traditional pillars of postwar French politics: the center-left coalition of leftists and liberals and the center-right coalition of neoliberals and conservatives. Macronism united liberals and neoliberals against populism and around the goal of harnessing the forces of free-market capitalism and technological innovation to ensure “equal status” and “equal opportunity” for all citizens.
Yet eight years later, Macron’s centrist experiment has spectacularly backfired; the mission to unite the nation and transcend France’s traditional left-right divide leaves the most divided National Assembly in modern history as its legacy. Although Macron’s gamble blocked the far-right from power, the leftist New Popular Front Coalition is more than 100 seats short of an absolute majority. Macron’s coalition lost a considerable number of seats, and the right-wing National Rally has gained major strength. Three-quarters of the nation now believes that France is “ungovernable.”
Nevertheless, the erosion of Macron’s anti-populist coalition has given way to a new governing consensus predicated on opposing strains of populism. Both left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon and right-wing leader Marine Le Pen are populists who oppose globalization and European integration and demonize elites. Professor Donatella Bonansigna, an expert in populism and globalization, explains that both Mélenchon’s and Le Pen’s respective populist movements “elicit anger” by offering an “interpretation of insecurity as the intentional product of malevolent elites.” Consequently, French politics is now dominated by competing narratives of populist discontent.
Some argue that Macron’s inclusive vision of national identity and neoliberal economics—which the president enacted through increased efforts to assimilate immigrants and integrate France into the EU market—agitated a populist electorate distrustful of multiculturalism and economic liberalism. However, another factor must be considered: Macron’s elitism and deliberate political estrangement from his people created the perfect storm for populist insurgents. More specifically, Macron’s embodiment of the “Jupiterian presidency” alienated his populace and inspired a potent populist reaction.
During his first Presidential campaign, Macron asserted that he aspired to be a “Jupiterian president”—a president, who, much like the Roman king of gods, obscured his power in a cloud of mystery—because a “normal president” makes “the French” feel “destabilize[d]” and “insecure.” At the core of Macron’s vision of a Jupiterian presidency is a conviction that contemporary France requires a president who can “lead society by dint of convictions” while not considering himself to “be the source of all things.” The Jupiterian is neither an absolutist monarch who concentrates sovereignty within his person, nor is he—according to Macron—a mere “transmitter” of popular will. The Jupiterian is not an agent of the people, but rather, simultaneously above and for the people.
Macron’s egoistic vision for the modern presidency seems to be rooted in French democratic typology from the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Because a reactive and anecdotal presidency “trivializes the function,” Macron argues that France “must invent a new form of democratic authority” based on a “universe of symbols.” Macron contends that these symbols must be “anchored in the history of the country”—particularly the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras in which the modern French conceptions of democracy and popular sovereignty were developed—and deliberately employed with a “permanent desire to project into the future.” Put simply, Jupiterianism looks backwards in order to move forward.
Historians like Daniel Arasse contend that during the French Revolution, the people’s appropriation of sovereignty—by beheading their king and establishing a democratic government on the ashes of the monarchy—amounted to their seizure of the sacredness that divine-right theory had attributed to the king’s person. Consequently, a decade later, Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign, often referred to as a dictatorship of the people due to its merging of monarchical and popular conceptions of sovereignty, solidified the French democratic tradition through a symbolic politics of embodiment; Bonaparte, as a republican absolutist, was believed to have popular sovereignty concentrated within himself. Two centuries after Napoleon’s death, France’s current constitutional regime, the Fifth Republic, empowers the President with supreme legislative and executive authority. Macron, therefore, inherits a long tradition, established by the French Revolution and consolidated by Napoleon, which regards a powerful executive as the vessel of the popular will.
Over the last seven years, Macron has embodied the “Jupiterian president” in the mold of a Napoleonic republican absolutist. Jupiter—a nickname that refers to Macron himself—has strived to reign above his people, centralizing power and governing with an unprecedented top-down approach, bypassing the typical legislative process to execute major labor market reforms and overriding parliament to overhaul the pension system. He has delivered on promises to sharply decrease unemployment, stimulate foreign investment, steward a robust economy with equitable growth, and build a flourishing technology sector. Nevertheless, Macron’s approval rating has consistently measured below 40%, with many French citizens harboring deep hatred for their “Jupiterian” leader.
Macron’s perceived arrogance and hubris are to blame for his political misfortune. Macron admits to only relying upon his own advice—one of his top advisers claimed that “Macron doesn’t listen to anyone”—and is widely panned for possessing a “blinding ego.” He made the decision to call for a snap election without even consulting his prime minister, and the French people perceive him as “elitist”, “arrogant”, and a “stranger to their concerns.” Macron’s elite schooling, his background as a Rothschild investment banker, and his insulation from the struggles of his people—while ensconced in the luxurious Élysée Palace—all contribute to the perception that Macron is out of touch. As Macron’s former prime minister Édouard Philippe put it, “it was the president who killed the presidential majority”.
Macron’s elitist, unilateral Jupiterian political identity has undermined his grand anti-populist experiment. His perceived condescension and pro-establishment policies have alienated the working class, earning him the label “The President of the Rich.” Many working-class voters were outraged by Macron’s abolition of the so-called tax on the rich, reduction of corporate tax rates, and most of all, his paternalistic decision to use executive powers to bypass parliament and ignore the opinion of 73% of his people to raise the pension age from 62 to 64.
The French electorate’s disillusionment with Macronism is perhaps best captured in the words of a trade union member protesting Macron’s pension reform efforts: “Macron thinks of himself as a kind of king, Jupiter up high looking down on us. We’ve got to hold out until he listens.” It remains to be seen the extent to which France’s populist revolt will bring Jupiter down to earth.
Aidan Hunter (CC ’27) is a rising junior at CPR studying classics and philosophy. He is from Tenafly, New Jersey, and works on Democratic political campaigns.