Macron is not the president of the rich; he is the president of the ultra rich

France has once again saved a new match point against the extreme right.

This time, Marine Le Pen has gone from 33% of the votes in the second round to 42%, an important growth in five years.

One of the causes of this growth can be found in the work of the Government of Emmanuel Macron.

The president assumed the presidency of France with the image of a young liberal and progressive who sought to renew the country "beyond the left and the right."

After a mandate characterized by hyper-presidentialism, antisocial policies and repression against Muslim mobilizations and citizens, there is little left of the Macron of 2017.

A few days ago, the former deputy of Ciudadanos Toni Roldán published a forum in these pages in which he tried to explain why the name "president of the rich" was an "unfair mental framework" that had been imposed against Macron, a president who he would be “a real progressive”.

We agree with this injustice and in these lines we defend why Macron is not the president of the rich, but the president of the ultra-rich, as former president François Hollande, who, paradoxically, gave the greatest boost to his political career by appoint him Minister of Economy during his mandate.

The French president has earned this label, mainly for reaching and reducing housing aid for 5.8 million households, particularly the most modest, and abolishing the solidarity tax on fortune (ISF).

These "drip down" policies, exempting the richest from taxes (we must add the

or the tax credit for competitiveness and employment), have only served to make the 1% richer, and especially the 0.1%, while reducing the standard of living of the poorest 5% of households, according to the Institute of Public Policies.

Despite the fact that the president has insisted that this money had been invested in creating jobs and companies, this has been denied even by the institutes close to macronismo, which, however, confirm the increase in the payment of dividends.

Macron's labor reform, which underpinned the reform of the previous socialist Executive and facilitated dismissal without real cause, seems to have reduced unemployment figures in France to 2008 levels (7.4%), but the truth is that these numbers hide a sharp rise in precarious or short-term contracts (+8.6%), the proliferation of micro-enterprises and the explosion of internship contracts fully subsidized by the Government.

Flexicurity, which appeared in the 2017 program, seems to have remained in a lot of flexibility and little security.

He did not fulfill his promise to maintain the right to unemployment for those who resign and the reform of the unemployment benefit, which came into force last October.

It is also worth mentioning his star measure, which he has copied from the program of the Republican right, that is,

that stigmatizes social assistance.

At the same time, Macron has been characterized by multiple outbursts that revealed his class contempt, an arrogant and condescending attitude that has caused his unpopularity to rise among many sectors, especially among the popular classes that would lead the

Precisely, regarding the

and Macron's reform to subsidize the ecological transition with a tax on fuel, it is not that we do not know that "progress is not free", but rather that we consider that these costs should not be distributed regardless of class .

As economic historian Adam Tooze has written, “the lesson of the gilets jaunes crisis

not that carbon pricing is impossible, but that it must be done with an awareness of distributional effects.”

Emmanuel Macron promised in 2017 profound reforms in education, but his changes have generated greater inequality.

Many promises to students have fallen on deaf ears, for example, the reform of scholarships, which never came.

was launched

, which has led to a selection process inspired by the Grandes Écoles that is more “fierce”, in the words of the faculty, affecting precarious groups in particular.

After the crisis of the

Macron announced the end of the ENA (National School of Administration), place of the country's elites.

It will be replaced by the ISP, a name change, but keeping the same selection criteria.

On the other hand, the work of Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has been characterized as authoritarian.

The same star measure of lowering the primary school ratios was launched without giving the educational staff time to prepare.

As for the results of the reform, the Ministry itself has confirmed that they are weaker than expected.

In addition, the reform promised to create 19,300 jobs, but only 7,000 have been created, according to a Senate report.

The investment of 500,000 million euros has not yet borne fruit.

No, Emmanuel Macron cannot be considered a progressive president either.

Even in the field of civil rights, his advances were very timid.

The most outstanding measure was the approval of assisted reproduction for all women, but as soon as it reached the Government, the budget of the Ministry of Equality had been reduced by 25%.

In 2020, with the pandemic, he stopped the social cuts, but carried out a government reform that meant a forceful right-wing of the Executive.

The Minister of the Interior, Gerald Darmanin, has proven to be a

security

In fact, Darmanin even described Marine Le Pen as "soft" in a debate on Islamism.

The controversial global security law cannot be considered progressive, in particular article 24, which prohibits the dissemination of images of police actions under penalty of a fine, at the same time that the president himself denied the existence of police violence against the

There is also the Islamic separatism law, which has involved the closure of more than 90 places of worship accused of "radicalism" according to a vague republican principle.

We could also highlight the position of the Minister of Education Blanquer and the Minister of Universities, Frédérique Vidal, against the woke culture

Islamo-leftism.

The Macron government has adopted the frameworks of the extreme right with the aim of stopping it and monopolizing the electorate of the conservatives.

The results of 2022 show that only the second part of the strategy has worked, since the vote of the candidate of the Republicans in 2017, François Fillon, has gone to Emmanuel Macron.

Macron's program for 2022-2017 includes the toughness on the migration issue.

After applying right-wing policies on the matter and leading violent expulsions from migrant camps, he wants to strengthen border controls and more effectively expel those who are not granted asylum.

He also proposes toughening the granting of long-term permits and is in favor of expelling all foreigners who "disturb public order."

Looking ahead to 2027, we find ourselves with few certainties: what will happen to the Republic on the Move movement after the end of Emmanuel Macron's presidency?

Will the French president again carry out the same antisocial policies or the heavy hand against immigration or Islam that have only made the extreme right grow?

Will he return to govern in a Jupiterian way, with which he has garnered so much unpopularity and citizen disaffection?

Confidence in the representative system of the Fifth Republic depends on it.

Aldo Rubert

is a doctoral researcher and professor in Political Sociology at the University of Lausanne and

is coordinator of the

Both are collaborators of Public Agenda.

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