Laurent Wauquiez, frontrunner to lead France’s conservative opposition, added the French president was a man who doesn’t love his country.
Mr Wauquiez said in an interview with the conservative weekly Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD): “Unlike his predecessors, Mr Macron doesn’t passionately love France… He is driven by one project: himself.
“He loves himself so much and is so obsessed with his image that he cannot stand being contradicted by the media. His Cabinet will never try to overshadow him, that’s why he picked them.
“He named a prime minister; but in truth, there is no prime minister.
“All politicians have inflated egos… But Mr Macron’s (ego) has reached unprecedented heights.”
Mr Wauquiez, who is the favourite to lead the party leadership in December, also said that the 39-year-old head of state, who has been dubbed “the president of the rich” by his critics, had split the French into two categories: “those who have succeeded in life and those who have nothing”.
“Mr Macron is one of those audacious people who enjoy flaunting their good luck … he’s pitting generations against each other.”
Mr Wauquiez also said that the president was an “arrogant adult” who thinks that “a country’s success can only be measured in numbers,” an apparent jab at Mr Macron’s planned tax and spending cuts.
Members of Mr Wauquiez’s centre-right party were confident that their presidential candidate François Fillon would win the race to the Elysée palace, but the party imploded months before the May election over the ‘Penelopegate’ financial scandal involving Mr Fillon and his British-born wife.
Since then, leading right-wingers have struggled to make their voices heard and failed to impose LR as the main conservative opposition party.