Emmanuel Macron is on a collision course with his own allies in Brussels after he called for ethical supply chain rules to be scrapped — a cause first championed by the far right.
On Monday, the French president stunned many when he said he wanted to repeal the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, a European Union law that requires companies to monitor their entire global supply chain for human rights abuses and environmental damage.
His call echoed similar comments from Germany’s center-right chancellor, Friedrich Merz, bringing Europe’s two most powerful leaders onto the same page.
But Macron’s own liberal political family is having none of it.
Pascal Canfin, an influential French member of European Parliament with Macron’s centrist Renew Europe group said he would not support repealing the law.
“I will defend the revision of the Directive to make it more manageable for companies, just like the French government has done so far in the negotiations — in coherence with the fact that it has already set up a strong due diligence law in 2017,” he told POLITICO in a written statement. “Removing all obligations would create an uneven and fragmented Single Market.”
The CSDDD, which was adopted last term, has been reopened by the EU executive as part of the first omnibus simplification bill, and is currently being negotiated in Parliament and the Council of the EU. The omnibus bill proposes watering down the law, but the window is now wide open for more drastic changes.
While Merz’s own center-right European People’s Party family and the Renew group are keen to simplify the bill, so far it has been only the far right that has vowed to kill it altogether.
The far-right Patriots for Europe said they had long called for the CSDDD to be dropped (along with the entire Green Deal). “How hypocritical it is to see Renew and EPP leaders fighting against texts they created,” said a spokesperson for the group.
Dutch Socialists and Democrats MEP Lara Wolters, speaking on behalf of the EU’s second-biggest political group, said, “President Macron is categorically wrong.”
“Repealing EU rules on responsible business would signal companies have the right to pocket profits made through exploitation and environmental damage. He is advocating for private gains and public losses,” she said, while accusing Macron of following U.S. President Donald Trump’s “cannibalist-style capitalism.” The Greens also oppose the proposal.
Without Renew Europe and the center-left groups, any attempt to repeal the law would require a coalition of center- and far-right groups — and a breach of the cordon sanitaire.
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