Emmanuel Macron arrived at the NATO summit without a word or a glance for journalists. On Wednesday, July 10, he hurried to Washington to attend the Atlantic Alliance's 75th anniversary celebrations, which had started the day before, without him. Upon arrival, he rushed to the second floor of the US capital's Convention Center to meet brand-new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Smiling and light-hearted, he exchanged a frank handshake with US President Joe Biden. Macron seemed to have put more than an ocean between him and the political crisis rocking his country. Here he was in his element, among his peers, talking about the world's great troubles: the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Indo-Pacific tensions.
The letter to the French people Macron had just published in the regional press, was meant to place him above the political turmoil at home. According to his staff, Macron drafted the letter the day before from the Elysée Palace. He then finalized the details from the A330 plane that took him to the US. The letter, presented as a means to "appease" the situation, put an end to an unusual ten-day silence from the president.
Was it necessary for him to speak to ensure his tranquility at the NATO summit? Three days after the outcome of the snap elections, Macron presented himself as the judge of elegance, almost the master of the game.
To those who criticized his decision to dissolve the Assemblée Nationale on June 9, which risked handing the country over to the far right, the president responded by welcoming the "mobilization" of the French people on June 30 and July 7, "a sign of the vitality of our Republic" and of the "need for democratic expression." His choice to dissolve was therefore the right one, he suggested.
He also pointed out that his opponents in the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) alliance are wrong to claim victory. "Nobody won," he proclaimed in the very first lines of his letter, ignoring the fact that the NFP came out on top (195 seats according to Le Monde's July 8 count), followed by his coalition Ensemble pour la République (168 seats) and the far-right Rassemblement National (RN, 143 seats), well ahead of the right-wing Les Républicains (LR, 45 seats). Macron depicted an Assemblée Nationale where "the coalitions that emerge from these elections are all in the minority," putting the NFP's lead into perspective.
The "people" the president said he wanted to empower, now want the republican front that countered the RN to be "put into action," Macron believes. This interpretation of the results obliges him, "both as the protector of the nation's higher interest" and "the guarantor of the institutions and respect for your choice," he wrote, to set the framework for discussions at the Assemblée Nationale to form a "solid majority, necessarily plural".
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