The new French minister of the economy
The most important appointment in the new, largely unchanged, second government Valls, is the one of Emmanuel Macron as France’s new Minister of the Economy, the Industry and the Information Technologies.
Emmanuel Marcron was born in the city of Amiens in the North of France on December 21, 1977. He is the son of a professor of neurology and a social-security physician.
Emmanuel Marcron studied languages, social sciences and philosophy. From 1999 until 2001, he worked as assistant for the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. In 2001, Emmanuel Marcron graduated from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (known in France simply as Sciences Po). From 2002 until 2004, he studied at the National School of Administration (ENA) and finished fifth of his year. Subsequently, he was affected to the General Inspection of Finances, which oversees, audits, analyzes, consults and evaluates France’s administrative, economic and financial policies and administrations.
A member of the Socialist Party since 2001, Emmanuel Macron first met now French President Hollande in 2006. In 2007, he worked in a prominent position for the famousCommission Attali, which had the task to identify ways to modernize the French economy for then President Sarkozy. In the 2011 internal primary of the Socialist Party, Emmanuel Macron was backing François Hollande, who was running on a program which cannot be described as business-friendly and reform-oriented.
French President Macron at the Tallinn Digital Summit on September 28, 2017. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Free photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
From 2008 to 2014, Emmanuel Macron worked for the famous Rothschild Bank in Paris, which made him one of three new, young associates in December 2010. He worked for instance on the recapitalization of the French newspaper Le Monde. Most importantly, in 2012, he was involved in Nestlé’s purchase of a Pfizer subsidiary, a transaction estimated at €9 billion, which made him a millionaire.
From May 2012 until June 2014, Emmanuel Macron became vice-secretary general of the newly-elected French President Hollande. He resigned from this administrative job in June because he was not offered a ministry. Subsequently, he dedicated himself to an educational job. Finally, on August 26, 2014 the French president Hollande offered him what he was looking for and named him Minister of the Economy, the Industry and the Information Technologies in Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ second cabinet.
Emmanuel Macron has been described as a social-liberal in favor of the market economy and a balanced budget, which places him on the right-wing within the Socialist Party. He inspired the government’s pact of competiveness, which was a timid move in the right direction, but far from a convincing reform step. He famously commented the 75% tax on millionaires introduced under President Hollande, with the words: That’s Cuba, just without the sun!
The creation of a new government had been triggered by statements by the Minister of the Economy Arnaud Montebourg and his friend, the Minister of Education, Benoît Hamon. Both attacked – not for the first time – the general direction of the economic policy. Prime Minister Manuel Valls took the opportunity to ask the president for a clarification regarding the economic policy to adopt by resigning. President Hollande stood behind his prime minister. Three left-wing ministers, including Montebourg and Hamon, had to leave the cabinet.
As I outlined in a German article in April 2014, it never made sense to have both Valls and Montebourg in the same cabinet taking care of economic policies since their visions were and are opposed. Only one line can be adopted. The issue has been settled with the appointment of a new minister of the economy on August 26, 2014. President Hollande seems to have abandoned his approach, pursued for decades, of trying to find a compromise between the different wings of his party; notably for this attitude, Hollande was nicknamed Flanby, named after a cheap pudding on sale in France’s supermarkets.
The new French Minister of the Economy Emmanuel Macron seems to embark on a political suicide mission. Roughly half of the Socialist Party is against market reforms, the liberalization of the economy and the labor market. If the Socialist Party represent maybe 30% of the French electorate, the social-democrat reformers within that left-wing party count for maybe 15% of the electorate. Since the positive results of the desperately-needed, structural reforms will only be seen in a few years, the Socialist Party voters will most likely stay at home in the next election or vote for other parties such as the populist and extremist right-wing party of Marine Le Pen. President Hollande will pay the price for his ill-conceived move to the left after his electoral win in 2012, where he notably increased the taxes on the rich instead of opting for structural reforms.
Will the current Cabinet Valls II survive the next budget vote? The left wing of the Socialist Party is unhappy. Early elections would probably endanger their careers as well. A former Rothschild banker within a Socialist government, that does not go down well with their left-wing electorate. It is unlikely that there will be a sudden enlightenment within the left-wing parliamentarians making them vote for reforms out of insight in their necessity. Will the left-wing Socialist members of parliament stick with their government for opportunistic reasons? Everyone on the left is talking about the austerity measures, although none has been introduced yet in France.
Last let’s mention a personal side of Emmanuel Macron: He is said to have always been attracted by people older, more mature than him. He is said to have been a pal of his professors rather than his fellow students. He fell in love with his French language professor, a married mother twenty years older than him. In 2007, Emmanuel Macron married Brigitte Trogneux, his French teacher at La Providence high-school in Amiens, a lady from a famous, local chocolate producing family.
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