PARIS: The riots in France sparked by the police killing of a teenager represent a deeply unwelcome and perilous crisis for President Emmanuel Macron, just as he was looking to press ahead with his second mandate.
The violence erupted just after Macron finally saw off half a year of protests over his controversial pension reform, which has largely dominated the domestic agenda.
But the images of shops ransacked and buses burned across the country also risk hurting Macron’s international standing at a time when he wants to play an instrumental role in ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine and be seen as Europe’s number one powerbroker.
In a hugely embarrassing development for Macron, the rioting has forced him to cancel a state visit to Germany that was due to start this weekend and was to have been the first such trip by a French head of state in 23 years.
The postponement is doubly awkward for the Elysee as Macron had earlier this year put off a planned state visit by the UK’s King Charles III – which would have been his first foreign trip as monarch – due to the often-violent pensions protests.
He also cut short his attendance at an European Union summit in Brussels this week, rushing back to Paris to chair a crisis meeting without giving a press conference.
After a first term that became dominated by combating the anti-government Yellow Vests protests and then the COVID-19 pandemic, the centrist’s second term again risks being marked by troubleshooting rather than implementing policy.
“NOTHING HAS SPARED HIM”
The rioting “is very bad news for the president”, who had been hoping for a smooth ride into the summer capped by a cabinet reshuffle to re-energise the French government and move on from the pensions crisis, said Bruno Cautres, researcher at the Political Research Centre of Sciences Po university.
“People are amazed to see how our country is confronted by tensions, violence and crises, one after the other. No leader can take the risk of having another conflagration like this in a few months.”
The riots broke out this week just as Macron was finishing a major three-day trip to the southern city of Marseille, where he had sought to push an agenda of getting to grips with urban problems in France’s most disadvantaged areas.
He was also mocked in foreign media, which accused him of attending the farewell concert of Elton John in Paris on Wednesday, hours before some of the worst rioting in recent days erupted.
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