But despite his troubles, splits between left and right – and the wildly diverging priorities of the so-called Gilets Jaunes – mean his political future is secure, at least in the short term, added Matthew Staples, a senior lecturer and staff tutor in the Open University’s School of Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Development and Geography. And he said Mr Macron was likely to press ahead with his controversial labour law, or Code de Travail, reforms which aimed at making easier for firms to hire and fire, simplifying negotiations between employers and employees, and reducing the power of national collective bargaining, despite the criticism aimed at him. Mr Staples told Express.co.uk said the protests had been “enormously damaging” for Mr Macron, with recent polls suggesting 58 percent of French people had at least some sympathy with the Yellow Vests.
He said: “Every French car has to carry a safety kit and a yellow vest is part of this, so it has an emblematic and egalitarian symbolism to it. Protests or movements akin to it are taking place in many European countries as similar attempts to reduce public expenditure and loosen Labour laws take place.
“In France they are perhaps later that most – how the protests manifest themselves is dependent upon how a particular political culture works.
“When the centre is so powerful, the left and right will use different means to influence politics – in Britain the emergence of Occupy/Stop the War and UKIP – the perception that the centre, and by the centre many people mean the entitled, well-off elite, often in business, normally in metropolitan cities does not listen to ordinary people.”
Nevertheless, he felt the Gilets Jaunes was being undermined by the lack of a unifying cause or ideology.
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He said: “They may have started as a fairly coherent protest against changes to the Code Du Travail and the social welfare budget and were initially responded to as that, with meetings between protest leaders and government ministers, but they have now become the expression of multiple discontents.
“What unites them is an unhappiness with Macron’s policies – but their discontents are varied and mutually exclusive – some decry his internationalism and commitment to the EU, some welcome this, some are happy with cuts to welfare (particularly to migrants), some want them completely reversed. So it has become increasingly disparate as a movement.”
With respect to Mr Macron’s public image, Mr Staples said: “The Benalla affair and the perception that he thought he could do what he wanted in that context, plus the incident when he demanded to be addressed as ‘MONSIEUR PRESIDENT’, told an unemployed young man he could walk across the road and find him a job, in a country with near to double figure unemployment has created an image of an aloof politician, as did his attempts to build a swimming pool in the Presidential compound in the South Of France.
“He had the benefit of a Presidential bounce in his first year of office enabling relatively muted response to the initial changes to Labour laws in 2017/18 and to social welfare programme cuts. He now has that backdrop to what is in the year ahead the real meat of his changes to the labour code.
“His attempts to defuse the situation have been muted, and are aimed at alleviating only elements that do impact on his plans – the increase in the minimum wage are fairly marginal, but don’t affect his plans to make hiring and dismissing workers much easier for example.”
As such, Mr Staples said Mr Macron had no intention of backing down.
He said: “His New Year address suggests a determination to press ahead with the reforms to the Code du Travail and so it seems that defusing them is not is first impulse.
“I think he thinks he can win and he is calculating that although the French people may not like it, he thinks they know that it might be necessary – it’s not very pleasant medicine, but it will make the patient better.
“His aspirations are to really solve the unemployment issue in France, which has dogged the country since the 1970s, with higher than EEC/EU unemployment figures for much of that period.”
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally (RN) party, the rebranded National Front founded by her father Jean-Maine Le Pen, lost to Mr Macron in last year’s Presidential election, and has been a persistent critic of his ever since, urging French voters to turn the impending European Parliament elections into a referendum on his Presidency.
However, addressing Mr Macron’s future electoral prospects and those of his En Marche! party, Mr Staples said: “One could argue that both the left and right may benefit out of the reaction to Macron and his slide in the polls.
“However the RN/FN already has 20 percent of the French seats in the EU and it will be unlikely that they will get significantly more than this given the far left in France has also made an impact in terms of the polls for the EU elections in France.”