This is an expression that comes up regularly in the mouth of the president: “Who could have predicted? or “who had planned?” “. Emmanuel Macron asked himself the question during his New Year’s greetings about the climate, and particularly the fires that ravaged French forests in the summer of 2022. The Head of State reiterated his remarks during a exchange with elected officials during his trip to Pau following the riots sparked by the death of Nahel, killed by a policeman’s shooting in Nanterre. “Finally, but who had foreseen what was going to happen? “, he questioned.
A formula that the president seems to appreciate, allowing him to escape his responsibilities but which discredits him at the same time, explains to 20 minutes Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, French communicator, president of the management communication consulting agency MCBG Conseil. An “exaggerated” analysis, however, believes Christel Bertrand, crisis communication consultant.
Strategy or clumsiness?
Can we talk about an element of language taken from the Macron dictionary in order to clear customs on the crises concerned? According to Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, it is indeed a “gimmick taken out of the repertoire” of the president and “a way of exonerating himself from his own responsibility; blaming someone else to get away with it politically is very common,” he says. In addition to this “very marked repertoire, Emmanuel Macron also organized a kind of great debate with elected officials, again a classic figure in his communication”, insists the communicator. However, for Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, the Head of State should have “innovated, taken risks, even if it is very difficult in the current situation of the country where the margin is very limited”.
For her part, Christel Bertrand makes a completely different interpretation and insists on the fact that it is a “beginning of a sentence” which is not representative of a political communication strategy. The entire phrase is addressed to elected officials: “Well, who foresaw what was going to happen? In this form, in cities which sometimes had never experienced any phenomenon of urban violence? “. “It is a message to spread the idea that he is not the only one responsible and indeed, who could have foreseen the riots in cities like Arpajon? she wonders. If it is a formula that Christel Bertrand describes as “not very pretty”, it is “much less clumsy than that of January about the climate crisis”.
A damaged image
Over his two terms, Emmanuel Macron will have so far gone through at least four crises, from “yellow vests” to riots, including Covid-19 and pension reform. Not to mention the Ukraine war and inflation. All were, in their own way, unpredictable, even that of the riots “in the form it took”, notes Christel Bertrand. But, “it’s true that everyone knew that the social situation was flammable, for a long time,” she concedes. As with the climate situation, the tense social context “is very well documented and known”, abounds Philippe Moreau Chevrolet.
So, for the communicator, this formula from the President of the Republic “weakens him a little more with each crisis. This demolishes the myth of competence, of infallibility, the axis on which he was elected at the base and his image as a good manager is very affected. From the start of the violence, according to the communicator, we sensed “a kind of panic in the communications of the Head of State, a hesitation, especially when he tried to blame the young people, the parents, the social networks, video games…” Which is explained by the fact that he “switched into crisis communication from one second to the next”, nuances Christel Bertrand. In this context, Emmanuel Macron’s fault is not to be surrounded by a political pundit. Moreover, “going to see François Bayrou in Pau, a confirmed and reassuring figure for public opinion, is the best thing he has done since the start of the crisis”, still judges Philippe Moreau Chevrolet.
A discourse of “at the same time” which divides
While the specter of the 2005 riots spread through everyone’s minds during this sequence, the political response was quite different. At the time, President Jacques Chirac opted for the most unifying speech possible, saying “to children from difficult neighborhoods, whatever their origins, that they are all daughters and sons of the Republic. He had “taken Gaullian clothes”, recalls Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, also obliged by a very different context, re-elected against Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002. Jacques Chirac had nevertheless also mentioned “parental authority” but advocating active support for families experiencing great difficulty.
Emmanuel Macron has chosen another political costume, “as defensible as that of Chirac”, judges Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, but in another spectrum, that of “at the same time”. This formula refers to the macronism of the first hour, this “neither left nor right”. Thus today, we have both heard ministers asking for the greatest firmness and others announcing an upcoming interministerial committee for cities at the start of the school year. This will “play in the division with two registers which compete to be the arbiter and appear as the only link between two opposing parties”, analyzes the communicator.