Macron Stumbles Ahead of Rematch With Le Pen
If the unpopular French president loses in Sunday’s election, he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
When the Yellow Vest protests spread across France late last year — sparking looting on Paris’s Champs-Elysees, vandalism at the Arc de Triomphe and disrupting everyday life across much of the country — President Emmanuel Macron tried to take the high road and stumbled.
With images of burning streets and smashed symbols of French heritage still fresh, Macron faces a tight race in Sunday’s European elections with nationalist Marine Le Pen, who he edged in the first round of 2017’s presidential elections. If he loses — and some recent polls show him trailing — it could further undermine his grand plans for tighter European Union integration, and he’d have no one to blame but himself.