Erstwhile president Francois Hollande told AFP on Saturday that Emmanuel Macron’s rise is “over,” following the announcement of a quick election by his erstwhile protégé that is expected to give the extreme right significant victories.
“I have absolutely no scores to settle. While running for office as an MP in his home department of Correze in central France, Hollande declared, “That’s all in the past.”
Socialist Hollande, who was experiencing terrible polling at the moment, decided not to run for reelection in 2017.
His former economic minister, Macron, shocked everyone by winning unexpectedly and upending both the conservative and liberal establishment parties by running as a pro-business centrist.
“If macronism ever existed, it is over,” the younger man declared, just two years into his second term. However, I say this without any particular animosity,” Hollande declared.
“That’s not to say that his term as president is ending; that’s something else entirely. However, his time as a symbol is finished, he continued.
Macron was re-elected to a second five-year term in 2022, but the same year, legislative surveys showed that he had lost his absolute majority in parliament.
While in minority government, his party has staggered along, enacting contentious and difficult-fought policies including toughening immigration laws and raising the pension age.
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