President Macron and the Queen: a tale of two heads of state

National disasters are the supreme test of leadership. That includes the fire that, as we now know, came within minutes of completely destroying the cathedral of Notre Dame on Monday. As the flames still raged, President Macron addressed the French nation on television. His words that evening will define his presidency.

“Notre Dame is our history, our literature, our imagination, the place where we have lived all our great moments, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations,” he told them. “That history is ours and it is burning.”

The President paused for dramatic effect. “We will rebuild it all together and that is undoubtedly part of French destiny.” He knew what the nation expected of him and he gave it to them. Not since De Gaulle, perhaps, had the French heard such oratory.

Macron has hitherto been a divisive President, mocked as “Jupiter” for his aloofness and almost overthrown by the gilets jaunes protests, which have lasted six months and brought violence to the streets of Paris. Now, however, he has seized the opportunity to bring the nation together, mobilising Notre Dame and its restoration as a unifying symbol.

His words had their effect. By Tuesday morning, as the charred cathedral still stood defiantly and the world gave thanks for its survival, offers of support were pouring in, with some £600 million pledged so far. Later that day, the President gave another televised address, in which he promised that the restoration would take just five years and added an explicitly political message.

“We are this nation of builders, we have so much to rebuild,” he declared. “I profoundly believe that it is up to us to transform this catastrophe into an opportunity to come together and think about what we were and what we need to become, to improve ourselves.” By implying that he, too, needed to become a different kind of leader, Macron disarmed his critics. “Being head of state [is not] just administering things, [it is] being conscious of our history.”

Macron is certainly conscious of his own destiny. In 2021 he will almost certainly seek re-election. We must hope that his decision to “own” the rebuilding of Notre Dame, by tying this colossal task to his own political timetable, the President won’t unduly force the pace of what should be a painstaking restoration.

The British do things a little differently. Our head of state does not administer anything, but she is the very embodiment of our history. The Queen is such an effective focus of unity that she makes this actually quite difficult task seem effortless. She doesn’t need to invoke destiny, or indeed any rhetoric at all. To reassure the nation, she only has to be there for us.

The only time when the Queen faced a comparable crisis to that of Emmanuel Macron was in 1992. That year, the facade of a happy Royal Family had crumbled before our eyes. Charles and Diana separated, with the secrets of their unhappy marriage laid bare, as were the antics of Prince Andrew’s estranged wife Sarah and the Princess Royal’s divorce. With its popularity plummeting, the Monarchy’s future was suddenly in doubt.

As if the human drama were not enough, that November Windsor Castle came close to destruction by fire. More than a hundred rooms were damaged, the restoration would take five years and cost more than £30 million. For the Queen, the shock of almost losing her favourite home, her beloved Windsor — the lowest ebb so far in the fortunes of “the firm” — prompted her to break her silence.

She chose a speech at Guildhall, marking the 40th anniversary of her accession, to address the nation. “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure,” she said, with an understatement that one can only describe as regal. “In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis’.”

She never explicitly mentioned her family troubles, nor did she dwell on the “tragic fire at Windsor”. Still less did she plead for sympathy. Her way of dealing with it all was to tell a joke about her ancestor Queen Victoria and an overzealous bishop. “Ma’am,” he said, “we cannot pray too often, nor too fervently, for the Royal Family.” Victoria replied: “Too fervently, no; too often, yes.” To laughter and applause, Elizabeth added, “I, like Queen Victoria, have always been a believer in that old maxim ‘moderation in all things’.”

Humour and understatement: how very British, and how very different from her French counterpart. President Macron has risen to the occasion in his own way, reminding the French of their history, their destiny and la gloire. The Queen, meanwhile, is a living link with the past, having outlived every other contemporary head of state. For her, at least, posterity always comes before politics. When she turns 93 this Easter Sunday, we should give thanks for a life well lived and a reign that has, on the whole, been happy and glorious.