, Columnist
Macron’s ‘Revolution’ Faces a Reckoning
France’s leader can claim an improved economy and greater European influence, but social unrest and democratic fatigue are deepening.
After five years in power, what happens next?
Photo: Oliver Hoslet/Pool/AFP via Getty Images; Illustration: Jessica Karl
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Could the re-election campaign of France’s President Emmanuel Macron be any less inspiring?
As French voters go to the polls on April 10 for the first of two voting rounds, gone is the enthusiasm or interest in the election of 2017, when Macron came to power as the youngest leader since Napoleon Bonaparte, with a new party promising to sweep out the establishment, knock out a rising Europhobic far right and bring about a liberal “revolution.”