Macron conjures the 'lame duck' syndrome, a leader without influence at the end of his mandate

Emmanuel Macron does not want to be like presidents François Mitterrand or Jacques Chirac. He refuses to finish his second and final term without strength or influence, while hostilities break out around him to succeed him in 2027. The socialist Mitterrand ended up seriously ill and died shortly after leaving the Elysee Palace. The conservative Chirac was called the “lazy king.” By choosing this Tuesday the young and dynamic Gabriel Attal to replace the veteran technocrat Élisabeth Borne as prime minister, just a few weeks after the immigration law divided his Government and his party, it is as if the French president said: “ I'm here! I still exist!”

Macron takes the initiative with Attal and tries to ward off the syndrome of lame duck, the evil that afflicts leaders who reach the end of their reign alone and without the capacity for action. At a time when French politics were showing signs of stagnation, the appointment of the new prime minister is a coup. He is the youngest in office: 34 years old. The first openly gay, something that in France in 2024 is so accepted and natural that until now it has barely deserved comments in the press. He has never made a flag of his sexual orientation. He is also the most popular minister of a Government in which he held the Education portfolio.

Who knows how long France's honeymoon with Attal will last, but there is satisfaction, even euphoria, in the Macronist ranks after months on the defensive over the immigration law or, before that, over the pension reform. Patrick Vignal, a former socialist and now a deputy for Renaissance, the ruling party, for a constituency in Montpellier, says that Attal reminds him of Macron in 2016, when he was beginning his then improbable run for the Elysée. Attal is a younger version without the usury of power. “It gives us freshness and enthusiasm,” says Vignal on the phone. “It's more than a new page. It is a new mandate.”

Reservations of other ministers

Not everyone pops the champagne cork. When rumors grew on Monday afternoon that Attal would be chosen, several government heavyweights made his reservations known, according to several French media outlets. Bruno Le Maire, the powerful Minister of Economy and Finance, has been cited among the dissatisfied. To Édouard Philippe, Prime Minister between 2017 and 2020 and leader of the conservative Horizons party, attached to the Macronist bloc. Or François Bayrou, eternal leader of the centrist MoDem formation. Philippe and Le Maire – like the head of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin – have something in common: the ambition to occupy the president's chair.

Attal's appointment may be interpreted by some as an affront, and on several levels. Because of her youth. And because he, too, like every politician with a minimum of talent, aspires to the maximum: in France, the presidency of the Republic. It's not that Macron has singled him out as a dolphin: everything can take many turns in the next three years. What he has done is point him out as an outstanding student. Someone who can prolong Macronism, that strange pragmatic, liberal and Europeanist ideology, neither left nor right (or both left and right); that movement identified with a man, its founder.

And therein lies part of the problem. Because Macron, after two terms, cannot run again. And something more than a usual change of tenant in the Elysée is at stake in his succession. At stake is, first, the coming to power of Marine Le Pen's nationalist and populist right. “I will do everything so that, in the coming five years, there is no longer any reason to vote for the extremes,” he promised after his victory in 2017 against Le Pen. In 2022 he defeated her again. If Le Pen wins in 2022, he will tarnish his legacy. As happened to Barack Obama when passing the baton to Donald Trump in 2017.

Two theories

The future of Macronism is also at stake. Is it possible without Macron? Or will it disintegrate as 2027 approaches? There are two theories. According to the first, Macronism, which since 2017 contributed to dynamiting the hegemonic parties of the moderate left and right, will have been a parenthesis in history. When Macron leaves, he will return to the previous board. The best guarantee to defeat the extreme right would be, in this case, a conservative candidate who garners the maximum consensus between pro-Europeans and moderates, but conservative after all. This would be the option of Darmanin or Philippe, perhaps Le Maire too (all three come from Los Republicanos, the French equivalent of the Spanish PP).

The second theory indicates that the central space that Macron built—the broad coalition that goes from social democracy to the moderate right and that stands as a wall against illiberals and eurosceptics, whether on the right or the left—was not an anecdote. He came to stay and Attal, a faithful Macronist of the first hour and coming from socialism, embodies this spirit better than anyone. Macron spoke this Tuesday, when congratulating his new prime minister, of “rearmament and regeneration.” And he evoked “fidelity to the spirit of 2017,” which he summed up with two words: “overcoming” the left-right divide, and “audacity.”

“Gabriel Attal is the one who can reinvent Macronism,” says deputy Vignal. “There has been, with his appointment, a political and philosophical awakening. Attal is a locomotive.” But the prime minister will not have it easy. If, as the polls predict, Le Pen's RN wins comfortably in the European elections in June, it will have suffered a first setback. And, like her predecessor, she will govern with the first group in the National Assembly, but without a majority, which will force her, like her, to resort to decree, or to pacts with the right that will feed the idea that only in this field there are future for macronism.

It is also not certain that as prime minister he is in the best position to compete for succession. Disassociating himself from Macron will surely be a requirement: Macron himself betrayed his boss, François Hollande, to take his place. And doing so as his prime minister is complicated. Appearing as the anointed one can be a problem. As the journalist Ludovic Vigogne recalls in the book Les sans jours, about the rocky start to Macron's second term, he “knows the precedents perfectly.” “Neither François Mitterrand nor Jacques Chirac,” he writes, “chose the one who, after them, took up the flame.” And Vigogne adds: “He has understood that his succession will provoke a pitched battle. It is the life of beastsAs he says”.

The danger, of course, is that as soon as the succession battle really opens – probably after the European ones – the lame duck is sharpened. With each passing day he will be heard less in France and among the Macronists he will be obeyed less. The president has already experienced it with the immigration law and the vote against or the abstention of dozens of Macronists, in addition to the resignation of a left-wing minister. “In his field,” Vigogne writes, “the countdown that has been started will force him to regularly remember that he is still the master of the game and of destinies.” Appointing Attal, who is so reminiscent of the Macron of a decade ago, is a way of hitting the table. To make it clear who is in charge. Still.

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