"I'm socialist." Emmanuel Macron was 36 years old, and had just been appointed as economy minister. In front of an audience of startuppers and business leaders on December 4, 2014, he unfolded a paper on which he had copied a vintage quote from historic socialist figure Jean Jaurès, published in the newspaper La Dépêche in 1887: "All politics of caste and egoism must disappear." "Me, I'm socialist and I say it," insisted Macron, despite having been the architect of the corporate tax credits that marked the start of President François Hollande's liberal. Two years later, in August 2016, Macron was invited to the Puy-du-Fou medieval theme park, whose owner, conservative politician Philippe de Villiers, boasted to him about the attraction's success. Standing next to the herald of the Catholic hardline right, the economy minister this time confessed: "Honesty obliges me to tell you that I'm not socialist."

Do words matter to Macron? In politics, not necessarily. In any case, he has used them all: "Liberal," "reformist," "patriot," "progressive," "a slightly authoritarian side," with a "right-wing ethos"... He has summed it all up in a slogan: "En même temps," or "at the same time."

He had promised to sweep away the old world, yet since the snap elections he called in June, he has appointed Michel Barnier, a long-serving figure of the pro-European and conservative right, followed by Christian democrat François Bayrou, a three-time presidential candidate, to serve as prime minister. Both are 73. In seven years, the "en même temps" approach that had promised to take the best parts of both left and right has turned into an "everything and the opposite" confusion that has caused headaches for the French people.

You have 92.54% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.