France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, gets back to work

2017, just months after he was elected for the first time, Emmanuel Macron had already passed controversial decrees designed to loosen up the French labour market. These helped the economy create jobs and bring down unemployment to its lowest level for 14 years, embodying the president’s early reformist zeal. Today, five months after Mr Macron’s re-election, that breezy can-do spirit has faded. The president’s demeanour is often sombre, his mode crisis-management. The question now is whether Mr Macron can revive his reformist vigour and complete unfinished business from his first term. The president’s darker note is scarcely surprising. He was re-elected in April amid war in Europe. The inflationary consequences of Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent sanctions, are being felt in France as elsewhere. This summer Mr Macron told the French to prepare for a harsh winter, calling it the “price of our freedom”.