Never, in peacetime, was governing so complicated.
Blame it on the economy: the major decisions that change our daily lives come from more and more companies and international agreements, less and less from the deliberation of the national Parliament.
The fault with the debt: the necessity, Europe or not Europe, to contain it to preserve our independence, limits the initiative. The state thus bogged down has become a poor investor and a poorer social buffer.
The fault with the mode of representation: the executive, the Parliament, but also the high administration and the adherents of the Republic in march, resemble little France social and territorial. Partly because of the electoral system.
In the face of millions of unregistered voters, abstainers and blank or void votes, in the face of a tripartite or quadripartite break-up of the votes cast, the winner is necessarily a relative winner. We know in advance the difficulty he will have to reform, beyond the first months.
Blame "business": even if they affect only a tiny minority of the 500,000 elected French, even if Alexander Benalla is more symptom of a certain governance than the scandal of the century, they bristle the opinion to the look for the slightest sprain of exemplarity.
The fault in the five-year period: it reduces the role of lightning rod Prime Minister overexposed the President, subject to the tumult of continuous information and so-called social networks that leave so little time to do, and so much space to protest.
Three fatal errors
When one is thus handicapped, even before having begun to govern, there are three attitudes to proscribe.
The first would be to respond to social expectations by cold arithmetic, as the Court of Auditors. A rate of growth or deficit has never been a political project.
The second would be to play solo. "Forgetting" to organize criticism within the executive leads quickly to a form of autism and, ultimately, authoritarianism. On the contrary, it must be deconcentrated and consensual, seeking convergences and ideas around shareable projects with the territories, the social actors, the neighboring political forces.
The third mistake would be to answer to a France of egalitarian culture that the solution to the problems passes, even when it is true, by the individual emancipation. To tell the unemployed that he can find his salvation by crossing the street is considered an insulting provocation.
Power is hard to conquer and so easy to lose. Remaking the government is obviously not enough to bounce back.
The day after his victory in 2002, partly by default, against Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jacques Chirac had condemned to powerlessness by not drawing political consequences.
By winning as much by rejecting Marine Le Pen as by adherence to his project, Emmanuel Macron risk failure if he opts, like Nicolas Sarkozy, for a governance that defeats his allies and shines his opponents.
In these moments of fragility, any narrowing of the political surface, whatever the results, would be unfortunate for the country, exposed to the most unpredictable mistakes. And formidable for Europe who would have everything to fear from a weak France. "