BORGO EGNAZIA, Italy — Emmanuel Macron isn’t one for keeping a low profile. Typically, at the Group of Seven meetings, he’s one of the loudest voices in the room. But right now, he’s looking more like a spent force.
As he filed in to meet fellow leaders in southern Italy for their annual summit, the man who once compared himself to the Roman god Jupiter cast an unusually desultory figure. U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak was supposed to be the lamest of the lame ducks in attendance, having called an early election he’s set to lose. But that was before disastrous European election results inspired Macron to take a similar plunge.
Now, rather than finding himself in his element, he’s set to meet bilaterally with one other G7 leader — Justin Trudeau — before skipping town early to go and fight the political maelstrom he’s engineered back home. When it was Macron’s turn to host back in 2019, he proved he loves to shake things up by throwing curveballs at those in attendance. This time, the one looking caught out is him.
It was host Giorgia Meloni who looked like she was having the most fun. Basking in the moment, she took a selfie outside the resort where the leaders are meeting.
European leaders declared themselves baffled by Macron’s move, and stumped by what the French president is seeking to achieve by calling an election just when Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has beaten his party so resoundingly in the polls. His approval rating fell to its lowest level five and a half years, according to a new survey.
The decision poses risks not only for France but for the security of the continent as a whole, two of them said, declining to be named when speaking about their embattled French counterpart.
One of the leaders pointed warily to the timing of the French elections — which are taking place shortly before the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) kicks off — and questioned whether Macron was in his right mind when he made the call.
The question of whether he was crazy to call a snap election was posed to him directly by Le Figaro earlier this week. His response: “Not at all, I can confirm.” When he was asked about it again by reporters at the G7, he said that other leaders had described his actions as “courageous.”
Only a few days ago the French President was back in host mode, beaming as he welcomed leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy. Then, he pledged to fight alongside Ukraine to the bitter end. But that was last week, and now he’s battling for his own political survival.
In Italy’s Apulia, Macron will have to reassure peers that the sudden decision to hold snap parliamentary elections in France was a good call, especially days before the NATO summit when Ukraine is struggling to gain the upper hand against Russia. Le Pen’s party would place first in the June 30 first-round vote with 35% while Macron’s would come in third with just over half that share, according to a poll of voting intentions published Wednesday.
An official in Macron’s office said the leader was ready to explain his decision to his counterparts, adding that he shouldn’t need to justify it.
At the G7 he’s keeping his schedule relatively tight: in addition to Trudeau, he’s meeting the leaders of Algeria, India, Brazil — and the Pope.
The last time the G7 was held in Italy, Macron and Trudeau stole the show with their bromance. On a sun-kissed terrace overlooking the sea, the image of the two young leaders staring into each other’s eyes had social media swooning.
That only goes to underline the change in the French president’s demeanor: in the past, even when he’s not been hosting international summits, he’s acted like he was. Just before that G7 was another meeting in Brussels where, in his youthful swagger, he crushed Donald Trump’s hand until his knuckles turned white, before snubbing the U.S. president to embrace German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
As Macron contemplated his future, he was treated alongside fellow leaders to a parachute show. He seemed a far cry from the pugnacious leader that struck a Raging Bull pose for the front pages.
But Macron put his gloves back on at the end of Thursday. When a flock of reporters asked him whether his international agenda was now in limbo, he lashed out at the media for focusing too much on why he had made the decision to call a snap election.
