Emmanuel Macron tacks right in search of ‘Old France’

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Higher birth rates. More police on the streets. Compulsory uniforms in schools, as well as enthusiastic singing of “La Marseillaise” national anthem.

Emmanuel Macron’s latest vision for protecting France in an era of global upheaval — and for fighting the ascendant far-right — has a distinctly conservative, even nostalgic edge. At a marathon press conference this week, the French president’s pitch was “for France to remain France”.

As he seeks to reboot his problem-plagued second term, Macron argued for promoting “order” and “authority” to address French concerns that if ignored would drive voters to the far-right, led by his perennial rival Marine Le Pen in 2027.

But the “France to remain France” slogan has been used before — most recently by Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigration author and polemicist turned presidential candidate, and before that in campaigns from the conservative Les Republicains party.  

It was only the latest sign that Macron, once a minister for Socialist President François Hollande, has completed a gradual but significant shift to the right. Much has changed since he was first elected in 2017 as a 39-year-old outsider, promising to be “neither right nor left” in his mission to transform France by breaking political taboos. 

The left-leaning newspaper Libération captured the vibe of the press conference on their front page with a sober-looking president flanked by a French flag. The headline read: “Emmanuel Macron, Vieille France”.

That tag of “Old France” is one that is almost unimaginable for Macron, a politician who was elected as the country’s youngest president and only last week named France’s youngest prime minister, Gabriel Attal.

But Macron’s rightward tilt in both rhetoric and on a wide array of topics — immigration, law and order, terrorism, the place of Islam…