Macron bashed the Italian budget. Now the Italians are vindicated - and he has egg on his face.
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The capitulation of the French President Emanuel Macron to the myriad demands of the Gilet Jeunes represents a serious embarrassment for the leader so recently dubbed ‘Europe’s Saviour’.
The rage of the movement shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise. ‘Manu’ may be feted as the bulwark against populism, but before the presidential run-off Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine le Pen commanded half of the electorate between them.
Macron’s image as the no-nonsense, uncompromising Europhile strongman has now been seriously dented; clearly, his people are not as keen on his political agenda, vision or reforms as he had perhaps convinced himself they were.
But perhaps more significant is the effect the riots may have had on the reputation of another young political strongman to the south.
Macron has been in regular conflict with the Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, pitched against each other in the media as the two faces of Europe. A recent cover of the Spectator depicted them facing off against each other, Macron the romantic image of civilised Europe, and Salvini, club in hand, the barbarian at the gate.
Their war of words has extended to the treatment of migrants, with Salvini accusing France of hypocrisy over repatriation and granting asylum. And Italy’s controversial budget has been another constant source of conflict.
Italy’s recent proposal, as documented in TheArticle last month, would take Italy’s spending over the EU’s 3% GDP threshold, which has led to Brussels taking action against the coalition government in Rome. But Macron’s pledge to allocate almost €10bn to meeting some of the demands of the Gilet Jeunes has, curiously, put France over that threshold, too.
France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, suggested this week that France would not breach the EU regulations, as it would fund the changes with cuts elsewhere. But the climb-down from Macron’s government is a major PR win for Salvini and the Italian government on two fronts.
The riots demonstrate that Macron, for all his talk, is not popular, and doesn’t have a hold on his country. Last weekend, meanwhile, during a fourth week of violence in Paris, Salvini travelled to Rome for a political rally. The turnout registered in the tens of thousands. As France howled at its champion, Italians flocked to theirs.
France having to raise spending, roughly in line with Italy’s, will be a huge vindication of Italy’s financial stance domestically. Macron, having bashed Italy’s migrant policy, only to close his own borders and have French police illegally stray over the Italian border to deport migrants, now follows suit on his budget. But the satisfaction in Rome will soon give way to anger.
The EU’s economic commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, has already gone on record to say that Italy and France’s economic situations are not the same, and that France, according to the FT, will get some ‘breathing space’. This is because, Mr Moscovici explained, the Gilet Jeunes riots represented an ‘exceptional’ set of circumstances, whilst Italy’s debts were prolonged. In essence, the protests have been likened almost to an act of god.
This is in many ways true. But it won’t go down well in Italy that France is being treated differently to Italy regardless of the circumstances; it also won’t make matters easier that Mr Moscovici is, himself, a former French finance minister.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, had suggested in recent days that he might be prepared to negotiate on certain elements of the Italian budget, to get it past the EU. But the likelihood is, in the wake of Macron’s change of policy, that resolve in Rome may harden once again. It’s good politics for the Italian government, both the Lega and 5 Star Movement, to play up the idea of EU of double standards at the heart of Europe to the electorate, and, where possible, apply pressure to Macron. The Gilet Jeunes movement is uniquely French development, but its biggest winners may not be the French public; instead, it will provide significant political capital south of the Alps.
