Macron’s power machine spins out of control (POLITICO)
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When Emmanuel Macron swept to power, French media marveled at the organizational skills of a man they dubbed the country’s first “managerial president.”
There were wide-eyed articles about Macron’s color-coded schedules, his 2 a.m. text messages to members of parliament and his interventions into minor matters of executive power. Most of all, Paris was fascinated by how tightly Macron controlled presidential messaging, handling important communication personally and never, ever letting his subordinates speak out of turn.
Less than a year and a half later, the manager-president seems to be losing control. On Tuesday, Interior Minister Gérard Collomb — a former Socialist and one of Macron’s most loyal supporters (he teared up during the president’s inauguration) — announced that he was stepping down to run for his old job as mayor of Lyon, despite the president having previously refused to accept his resignation.
Collomb’s resignation, and the farcical manner in which it played out, added to an impression of mounting disarray around a president who made top-down control over his Cabinet a part of his political brand but whose approval ratings are now almost as low as those of his predecessor, François Hollande.
