(CN) — French President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to reboot his troubled second term in the Élysée with a new fresh-faced government — and by adopting some of the slogans and policies of his enemies on the far right.
Macron, the leader of the pro-business Renaissance liberal party, laid out his plans for the next stage in his presidency during a lengthy and rare prime-time speech and news conference Tuesday evening.
The high-profile event comes amid a government reshuffle that has seen a potential successor to Macron, 34-year-old Gabriel Attal, become prime minister and a number of new ministers enter his cabinet, including several from France's right wing.
Attal, who is openly gay and a former education minister, is France's youngest prime minister and he leads France's youngest government. In 2017, Macron became France's youngest president at age 39, but he cannot seek reelection after his term ends in 2027.
On Tuesday, Macron delivered a conservative message focused on middle-class tax cuts, boosting France's declining birth rate and reintroducing uniforms and the national anthem in schools. Also, he said the country needed to focus on reducing the amount of time children use digital devices at home and school.
With such proposals, Macron is clearly responding to the growing strength of Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally. Le Pen's party is on track to win June European Parliament elections in France. She's outdistanced Macron in polls and she is now considered the lead contender to replace him in 2027.
Macron called for a “civic rearmament” and said it was necessary to take steps “so that France remains France.”
This sentence, delivered early in his opening speech, mimicked word for word a slogan used by far-right television personality and presidential candidate Éric Zemmour.
In his remarks, Macron took aim at Le Pen's party, calling it a “party of lies” that has “stolen” bad economic policies from the far left.
“I will do everything to stop her again,” he said about Le Pen. In 2017 and 2022, Macron defeated Le Pen in runoff races.
Macron has made modernizing France through loosening labor, environmental and pension laws a chief priority. He is also pushing to re-industrialize France with subsidies to foster new cutting-edge industries, such as in the renewable energy market.
Macron said he would continue pushing to streamline regulations in a bid to make France more economically dynamic. He called on France to become a country of “boldness, action and efficiency.”
“We have had too many taboos,” Macron said. “We will put an end to useless norms.”
Macron also vowed to tackle France's declining birth rate, another topic favored by the far right. He said his government would make it more enticing for parents to have children by offering to pay more for parental leave, and he said efforts will be taken to tackle infertility.
On Monday, France's National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies reported the country's birth rate is the lowest since World War II, and that the number of single people is rising.
Andrew Smith, an expert on France at Queen Mary University of London, said Macron's two-hour performance showed “a president stepping back onto the campaign trail for June's upcoming European elections.”
“There's an attempt to govern from the right,” he said, speaking to France 24, a French broadcaster.
Smith said this shift to the right may be “quite a dangerous calculation” for Macron.
“But there's a real difficulty in trying to meet them on these grounds of nationalism,” he said of the far right. “This language is kind of dog-whistle politics.”
Since becoming president, he had held a similar news conference only once before, in 2019.
Macron's domestic agenda has been crippled by the lack of a parliamentary majority in the National Assembly after his party lost legislative elections in June 2022.
Last April, he was forced to push through controversial and unpopular pension reforms without Parliament's approval, sparking huge protests and unrest.
Due to this parliamentary weakness, Macron was compelled to rely on the votes of Le Pen's members to pass a tough — and potentially unconstitutional — immigration bill a month ago.
His new proposals may not need legislative approval.
On foreign policy, Macron vowed to continue supporting Ukraine and pledged to deliver a new batch of long-range missiles, bombs and weapons. He said he planned to travel to Kyiv in February to sign a security agreement with Ukraine. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently went there to sign such a deal.
He said Russia “cannot be allowed to win in Ukraine” and that Moscow's attack on its neighbor was “the most significant risk” to the global order.
With the possibility of Donald Trump returning to the White House, Macron said the European Union must realize that it needs to become more “capable of defending itself” without depending on the United States.
“The U.S.’s first priority is itself. The second is China,” he said.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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