this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Man, I know people dislike Macron, and I still think his handling of the Le Penn situation last year was a dramatic misplay, but I've always had a huge amount of respect for him. Maybe because I don't live in France (although I was almost accepted into a job there earlier this year!), but he seems like such a role model in terms of political leadership. He's been handling the Trump/Putin situation much better than most other world leaders, in my opinion

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think he demonstrates global leadership in a number of things, but leadership of France on a range of things including privacy is not good.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

i approve at what you say, yet, i would add :
... it might be impossible to be a loved president of a so much divided country as today's France.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

He is greatly responsible for the division.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Domestically, what has he done to be loved?

Easy to blame the country, but no one is entitled to be loved by default.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

OTOH, I don't think we've ever liked any of our presidents. Their approval ratings are so abysmal that they would horryfy US politicians (where 40% is low). Macron is quite bad, but is he actually worse than the rest? We might end up regretting him when LePen gets elected in a couple years.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

He is a very good diplomat... And a disappointing politic.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Ehhh... I don't think you would say that if you were paying close attention with how he handled opposition the couple of last years.

For instance, he used special laws about 20 times to cripple any opositions when his party lost his majority to pass unpopular laws. They tried to make it illegal to film police and they pushed insane surveillance laws during the Olympic games that is most likely to stay. He refused to let the opposition name a prime minister even if the opposition won the legislative elections. He went against the clear will of the people regarding the age of retirement by forcing it with a special law (90% of workers were against it). Hell... he crippled public hospitals by removing beds during the Covid19 pandemic. He is a typical neo-liberal that mostly has the interest of his own social class. People really wanted him gone and he did everything in his power to stay. He's still there because people were scared of the far right. I'm skipping so many things because there are so much mess to report I can't actually remember it all of it on the top of my head.

The people are so pissed about him that there are talks about the 5th republic being a failure and needing to be changed for a 6th republic.

He has a good image on the geopolitical scene, but I would find another role model if I were you. I'm not French, but I can confidently say that he's a lying piece of shit and most people in France hate him.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Genuinely appreciate your and the other commenters' inputs, I really did only focus on his image outside of France. Thank you for all these examples!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

I'd like him as a foreign affairs minister, eu ambassador or somewhere in the EU governing body. I think he'll be great there.

As a president for France, he's definitively not and for so many reasons you qan't list them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's loads of issues with Macron, but I don't see how he's responsible for any of the above

The president doesn't legislate, and he doesn't command the police, he's the executive head of state.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In case you have missed it macron is the president of france since 2017

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I wasn't claiming that he hasn't been the president of France; I did, in fact, notice.

I said that's not what the president of France does.

It's like getting mad at the King of England for Canadian laws, that's just not his responsibility, even if he is head of state.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It’s like getting mad at the King of England for Canadian laws, that’s just not his responsibility, even if he is head of state.

Yea same thing, blaming the president of france for his government policies is like getting mad at the king of england for canadian laws...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They're both the respective heads of state, and they're both not members of the legislative branches.

So yeah, in this context they are effectively the same.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You're not getting it. Macron does in fact control the legislation.

Sure it's not what the president is supposed to do, there's a prime minister and speaker for that to decide what laws will be voted on in what calendar. Except when Macron forces his pick on both (and straight up ignores when a new national vote says the left wing opposition gets to name the prime minister), forces the voting calendar, forces passing his laws by skipping a vote he knows will fail, etc.

The 5th French Republic has laws like this that give the president some exceptional powers to get over the head of the parliament. And Macron uses those exceptional powers all the time.

So yes, Macron does do all the things you say the president doesn't do. And that's why people are mad at him.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Respect ≠ "role model"

Try again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Man he is only making business. The current goal now is the rearming of Europe as huge and as fast as possible. Russia making peace can slowdown that. I don't say that he is wrong, but he is just a businessman (France is i think in the world top 3 of weapons selling). Also he fucked Frances democracy, and he kept the colonialism attitude of France in other continents.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Russia has demonstrated it doesn't actually desire peace so many times by now that it's a bit pointless to mention it, really.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It still needs repeating to counter propaganda from Russia and Russia's western supporters. If you leave propaganda unchecked, worse things tend to happen.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Yeah. You don't need to look far (to lemmy.ml) to find people who argue that Russia is perfectly justified in not respecting the ceasefire. Clearly we won't be changing the mind of those people because to them anything Ukraine related (from the west) is 100% propaganda which means Macron stating the obvious is also just "propaganda" to them. But for people who aren't keeping up with the news it's useful to remind them that the world doesn't believe the tankie sauce certain people seem to think is the truth.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Hence “once again” in the title

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Now that they own USA ? They go for maximum profit.