Macron Leans on Business Confidence to Bolster White-Collar Vote
- Executives, wealthy back incumbent for re-election, polls show
- Businesses embrace economic policies, pandemic management
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Emmanuel Macron has kept a firm hand on corporate France in five years as president, prioritizing politics over private business by blocking the sale of the country’s largest supermarket chain and forcing its biggest utility to bear the brunt of surging power prices.
Rather than recoil at his dirigiste approach, many company executives are happy to look past it, celebrating instead Macron’s efforts to reduce bureaucracy and taxes and the country’s standout economic rebound from the pandemic. That’s given him a big advantage in winning votes from the business world as he seeks re-election.