Emmanuel Macron’s problems are more with presentation than policy

IT IS AU long way down from Mount Olympus. Last year Emmanuel Macron strode into power with a mandate to reform France. This week France looked unreformable. The streets of Paris have been littered with burned-out cars and glass from smashed shop windows. Parts of the countryside are paralysed, as protesters in high-visibility yellow jackets obstruct roads and blockade fuel depots. Policy -turns are making Mr Macron look as weak as all his recent predecessors who tried to change this most stubborn of nations. The man who once promised a “Jupiterian” presidency is looking decidedly mortal.Mr Macron’s election in May 2017 seemed to herald new optimism about France, Europe and the world. Young, intelligent and bubbling with ideas to make France more open, dynamic and fiscally sober, he gave an eloquent rebuttal to the drawbridge-up nostalgia of Brexit Britain, Donald Trump’s America and the autocracies of eastern Europe. The hope for a broad renewal of the radical centre came to rest on his shoulders.