PARIS — Emmanuel Macron was on a plane to Egypt when France faced the most serious crisis of his time in office.
So why did the French president leave the country early Monday morning while there was such uncertainty at home?
The answer, according to several current and former French officials, was to ensure his legacy.
With fewer than 20 months left in the Elysée Palace, Macron is laser-focused on cementing his place in the history books — and believes he’s earned that distinction for his work in the Middle East, they said.
The French president wasn’t going to miss his chance to be there for Monday’s peace summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, even with his house on fire and irrespective of it forcing his twice hand-picked prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, to push back presenting his draft budget by a day, nearly missing the deadline.
French officials in recent days have been working hard to craft a narrative that the Gaza peace plan pushed by U.S. President Donald Trump was triggered by Macron’s own proposal and his lead role in pushing for recognition of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly last month.
That’s why Macron really wanted to make it to the summit in Egypt, said a government adviser who, like others quoted in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. An ally of Lecornu said the president was “very, very focused” on Gaza.
The French political system is designed so that the president can represent the country on the world stage while the prime minister looks after matters at home. But these are exceptional circumstances in France, with Lecornu resigning after just 14 hours before being reappointed and some politicians even speculating that Macron might not even see out his time in office.
At first sight, Macron appears to be following in the footsteps of former presidents, such as François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, who pivoted to the international stage in the later years of their terms after losing their parliamentary majorities.
But Macron hasn’t let go of domestic policy. Unlike his predecessors, he isn’t adopting a “hands-off attitude,” said an early Macron backer.
“Macron has become very attentive to his European and international visibility,” said a former French official. “It’s what he’s got left to give himself the impression that he still has influence.”
Charm in Sharm
The Elysée last week went into lobbying mode, ramping up briefings with academics and journalists to drive home that Macron had been key to the success of Trump’s peace plan.
“The Elysée’s priority was to spread the idea that their plan was very useful,” said a former diplomat, referencing the Franco-Saudi roadmap to end the war in Gaza.
At the U.N. General Assembly last month, Macron risked drawing U.S. and Israeli ire with his push for Palestinian statehood, which was followed by close to a dozen Western states doing the same. His speech on the U.N. stage drew comparisons in Paris with other occasions when France stood up to Washington, in particular former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s landmark 2003 address rejecting Washington’s march to war in Iraq.
While in Egypt, Macron played carefully with the optics of power, of which he is an astute reader, to avoid being seen as playing second fiddle to Trump. He chose not to stand on the podium behind the U.S. president, instead sitting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Middle Eastern leaders, a move that was noted by Trump.
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the summit, Macron spoke about the efforts needed to keep the ceasefire in Gaza alive and the contribution France could make.
Asked about national politics, he presented himself as “the guarantor of French institutions,” but could not help but lash out at opposition parties for trying to destabilize his prime minister.
Winning the battle, losing the war
Many officials say the French president is trying to remain above the fray. But there are several explanations as to why he’s doing so that go beyond the legacy argument.
Some attribute it to the Jupiterian strategy of shrouding his office in mystique, communicating in grand gestures, and refusing to sully himself with the mudslinging of domestic politics.
One government official said Macron is “probably letting tensions dial down” and he is remaining silent to protect the institutional checks and balances of the French state.
Others say the silence is strategic, even magnanimous. They say the president recognizes just how unpopular he is — a recent poll put his approval rating at 14 percent — and is trying to prevent his allies from being tarnished by his political toxicity.
But Macron never really lets go of anything.
In his meeting with opposition parties last week, Macron made it very clear who calls the shots when, according to a presidential aide, he offered to partially delay his flagship pension law, which pushed back the age of retirement to 64 from 62 for most workers.
Macron has cycled through centrist and center-right prime ministers in the past year to fend off challenges to that law and other achievements such as his tax cuts.
Many saw his decision to reappoint the loyal Lecornu, just days after he resigned in the aftermath of his 14-hour government, as the sharpest example of his dogged refusal to hand over power despite his camp losing last summer’s snap election.
Macron ended up being forced to sell off the crown jewel he had jealously been guarding, the pensions reform, at least for now. Lecornu announced Tuesday that he would freeze the law raising the retirement age until 2027, in order to secure support from the Socialist Party and survive a no-confidence vote on Thursday.
Macron might yet save his pensions reform as there are doubts swirling that the suspension might not pass through parliament.
But fighting tooth and nail to ensure his legacy might also destroy it if Macron can’t secure the future of his centrist movement and his potential successors, such as former prime ministers and likely presidential candidates Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal.
Macron’s handling of the current crisis will almost certainly affect the campaign of any centrist trying to stop Marine Le Pen, or someone else from the far-right National Rally, from winning the presidency.
“What image are we projecting? We’re in favor of pension reform, and then we give up. It’s not clear,” said the Lecornu ally quoted above.
“The only one who appears to know what she represents is Marine Le Pen,” they said. “She has a populist message, but it’s simple and consistent: This circus must stop.”
Pauline de Saint Remy and Giorgio Leali contributed reporting.
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