Does Macron want to make France more multicultural? – The Spectator

The UK-based newspaper The Spectator has published an article by Gavin Mortimer criticising the French President Emmanuel Macron.  

Caliber. Az republishes the article:

“Emmanuel Macron will address France in the coming weeks in what is being billed as a ‘Message of Unity’ speech. According to Le Monde, the president is aware that the country is in turmoil but he believes he can make France great again. ‘The role I have assigned myself is to hold the country together,’ Macron is quoted as saying. ‘Between denial and over-dramatisation, there is room for lucidity that involves examining the country’s problems but also not letting it fall apart.’

Those problems are many, from a cost of living crisis to violent crime and much in between. The French have a reputation for not looking on the bright side of life, but there is little to be cheerful about these days in the Republic. Even the Olympic Games, which are coming to Paris next summer, have turned into a source of anger and embarrassment for millions.

Much of the discontent is directed towards Macron. His enemies sense that he is floundering. The swagger has gone, and with it much of his authority. So, too, the respect of his adversaries, domestically and internationally. Macron talks but no one listens.

Last week encapsulated his diminishing stature. The president became embroiled in a row after he hosted a Jewish ceremony at the Elysée Palace. Didn’t he or any of his advisors anticipate the furore that would erupt? Admittedly, much of the outrage was faux, manufactured by politicians – mainly on the left – who accused him of betraying France’s cherished laicite, or secularism. But that’s not the point. In inviting France’s Chief Rabbi, Haïm Korsia, to light the first of eight candles and mark the start of the Jewish festival of lights, Macron was also inviting criticism. 

A president of the Republic should not be seen to favour one religion over another. ‘Will Macron now do the same for other religions?’ wondered Alexis Corbière of La France Insoumise. ‘It’s a dangerous spiral.’

Jewish groups also expressed their unease about Macron’s gesture. ‘This is something that shouldn’t be allowed to happen again,’ said Yonathan Arfi, head of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (Crif). ‘French Jews have always considered secularism as a law of protection and of freedom. Anything that weakens secularism weakens Jews.’

What made Macron’s invitation to the chief Rabbi all the more inexplicable was the fact that last month he excused himself from joining a march against anti-Semitism precisely because he said that the president of the Republic should not be seen to take sides. France is about universalism, as Macron explained to the New York Times in 2020. 

He contacted the newspaper to rebut criticism of French secularism in the wake of the murder of the schoolteacher Samuel Paty. ‘There is a sort of misunderstanding about what the European model is, and the French model in particular,’ Macron said. Describing the model as ‘universalist, not multiculturalist’, he added: ‘In our society, I don’t care whether someone is black, yellow or white, whether they are Catholic or Muslim. A person is first and foremost a citizen.’

Does Macron still adhere to that view? The French left doesn’t think so, and nor do some on the right, particularly after his government launched an initiative last week called ‘The New Generation’. 

Eric Zemmour’s Reconquest party was quick to express its outrage, and according to a Sunday newspaper, they will take legal action against the Minister for Culture, who they accuse of embracing a ‘woke ideology’ that promotes ‘anti-white racism’. More to the point, they claim, the initiative is ‘illegal as it constitutes racial discrimination on the grounds of skin colour, which is prohibited by our laws and our Constitution.’

Macron wants to use his upcoming address to the nation to ‘restore hope’ and remind France ‘what makes us who we are’. But what is that? It is universalism or is it multiculturalism? Macron seems unsure, a leader who has lost contact with the people he leads.”