Journalist Louis Hausalter publishes 'La Foudre et les cendres,' a narrative on the missteps of Emmanuel Macron's second term. With eighteen months left in his mandate, the book portrays a dying power marked by the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024. The author traces the decline's origins to the 2022 presidential election.
Louis Hausalter, a political journalist at Le Figaro, provides in his book subtitled 'Macron, the secrets of a forbidden succession' a meticulous and fluid account of a power in agony. Tasked with covering the Élysée, he traces the 'beginning of the end' to the dissolution of the National Assembly on June 9, 2024. Emmanuel Macron, the uncontested leader, hastened this twilight by striking down his own camp, preferring to see Jordan Bardella at Matignon rather than being escorted by Marine Le Pen in 2027. 'A cohabitation is better than a succession,' he tells his stunned lieutenants that evening.
The original sin of the unraveling dates back further to the 2022 presidential election, according to Hausalter. The campaign was a sham, with a program boiled down to two proposals: reforms to vocational high schools and pensions. The president-candidate appeared only fleetingly, between a summit on the war in Ukraine and a call to Vladimir Putin. Re-elected on the lazy refrain 'me or chaos,' Macron showed no greater involvement in the legislative campaign. He delayed choosing between Catherine Vautrin and Elisabeth Borne for prime minister, and fell short of an absolute majority in the National Assembly by about forty votes. At no point did he seek to form a coalition to govern, sinking into depression, intoxicated by his re-election feat and unable to script the next chapter of his term.