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Macron Quickly Assumes a Presidential Attitude - The New York Times

posted onMay 31, 2017
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Article snippet: PARIS — France’s boyish president already has faced down Donald J. Trump, lectured Vladimir V. Putin and confronted the formidable French labor unions — all in less than three weeks. Seeking to shatter any doubts about his youthfulness and inexperience, President Emmanuel Macron, 39, has shown himself punchier and more decisive than the bland candidate he evoked in the campaign. And he is doing it without notes. Last week he outshook President Trump’s hand at the Group of 7 summit meeting. On Monday, in a slap at Russia, he put the visiting Mr. Putin on notice over Syria and propaganda assaults from Kremlin-allied media. Mr. Macron has politely but firmly challenged France’s unions about changing what he regards as France’s job-killing labor code, the most ambitious part of his domestic agenda. He has given fits to France’s established parties on the right and the left, poaching personalities for his government from the first and advancing a Socialist-unfriendly agenda destabilizing to the second. Improbably, he will most likely win a parliamentary majority in June’s elections, though skeptics doubted he could even assemble enough candidates for his new party. The early impression is a marked contrast to the downbeat, relatively informal style of his predecessor, François Hollande, derided for his “little jokes,” chattiness with the media and desire to be a “normal” president. Mr. Macron is not chatty, keeps the media at a distance, does not tell jokes and is an... Link to the full article to read more

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