New French leader to address voters’ ‘fear’ in Merkel meeting

yesterday by: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris

France’s president-elect Emmanuel Macron will push the EU to adopt a tougher stance on trade and foreign investment in an early bid to win over domestic critics calling for greater protectionism.

Mr Macron, who campaigned on a pro-EU platform, will visit Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin next week for the first time since his election and will urge the German leader to move quickly to strengthen EU anti-dumping measures and tighten control of foreign investments in strategic sectors, aides said.

French voters’ choice of Mr Macron over far-right Eurosceptic candidate Marine Le Pen in last Sunday’s election has sparked optimism that EU leaders will redouble efforts to strengthen the bloc after Brexit, helped by a stronger Franco-German alliance at the heart of the bloc.

But an adviser said Mr Macron, who will take office on Sunday, also wanted the EU to address the Euroscepticism and working-class anger towards globalisation that powered Ms Le Pen to the final round of the French presidential campaign.

“He has embraced a resolutely pro-EU stance during the campaign but this doesn’t mean he wants to defend the status quo,” the official said. “If the Europhiles don’t change the EU themselves, they will no longer be trusted.”

Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economic adviser to the president, said on Thursday in Brussels that Mr Macron would seek to respond to the “fear” voters had expressed during the presidential campaign. “He is not [there] just to speak to happy France,” Mr Pisani-Ferry said. Free Lunch How Macron’s France can take the lead in Europe If he gets his priorities right, the president-elect can refashion the continent. The latest in a series of articles by Martin Sandbu on Macron’s agenda

By advocating the EU be more protective of its own interests, the incoming French leader also hopes to kick-start constructive talks with Germany before engaging on trickier topics such as reform of the eurozone, where his views are more at odds with those of Ms Merkel and most German voters.

Mr Macron’s priorities include a “Buy European Act” modelled on US rules that would make it more difficult for non-EU companies to access public procurement deals. He also wants greater military co-operation between France and Germany.

Mr Macron campaigned as an EU enthusiast, travelling twice to Berlin, where he met Ms Merkel, and choosing Beethoven’s Choral symphony, the EU anthem “Ode to Joy”, to mark his appearance at his victory rally after Sunday’s election.

He has argued that Europe needed more effective control over subjects such as defence, terrorism, migration and trade to be an effective counterpoint to the US and China. He advocates “government” for the eurozone, with a common budget and even a parliament, to boost growth.

But he is also aware that half of French voters initially cast their ballots for one of a slate of anti-globalisation candidates in the two-round presidential election, in which Mr Macron beat Ms Le Pen in Sunday’s run-off.

Mr Macron has sought rapprochement with Berlin, criticising predecessors for talking tough to Germany as a way to boost domestic popularity. “For decades, [French] leaders decided to create a new relationship with Germany, to completely change the relationship and to be tough with this bad partner,” he said in Berlin in January. If the Europhiles don’t change the EU themselves, they will no longer be trusted Macron official

Sylvie Goulard, an MEP and adviser to Mr Macron on EU affairs, said: “For the first time in a long time, we have a French president who doesn’t want to flex his muscles against Germany, but instead we have a president who wants to play as a team.”

Mr Macron has said a common budget for the single currency area would help it to deal with economic shocks and invest in weaker economies. “The eurozone has created tools to deal with crises but there aren’t many tools to boost economic convergence,” an aide noted.

Mr Pisani-Ferry said: “There has been a lot of crisis management and last-minute decisions to prevent very bad things happening, but we have lacked a serious discussion.”

Such rhetoric has been met with scepticism in Berlin ahead of Germany’s general elections in September. While some of Mr Macron’s proposals are backed by the Social Democrats, Ms Merkel’s centre-left junior coalition partner, many in the chancellor’s Christian Democrat-led group fear fiscal transfers would reduce incentives for structurally-weak EU members to conduct reforms and slash public spending.

But some in Mr Macron’s inner circle believe that his status as an EU bulwark against populism will persuade Berlin to soften its stance.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the German economy minister, said on Thursday that he agreed with Mr Macron on the creation of a eurozone parliament.

In any case, the French president will not make public demands on this topic before German elections and will instead use the summer to try to pass meaningful reforms of the labour market and present his first budget in the autumn, aides say.

Ms Goulard said Mr Macron was “a firm believer that reforming and cutting public spending are good for France”.