On Saturday, July 29, only a few hours elapsed between French President Emmanuel Macron's return from a tour of Oceania and his departure with his wife to their presidential summer residence. Eager to escape Paris for a few days, the couple will stay at the Fort de Brégançon, in southern France, a site once favored by President Georges Pompidou.

While paparazzi have already spotted the French first lady, Macron has remained invisible since his arrival. The president has been busy with the fallout of the coup in Niger. From crisis meetings to phone calls with the overthrown president, Mohamed Bazoum, Macron has closely monitored the situation, including the evacuation of French nationals earlier this week ahead of the expiry, on Sunday, of an ultimatum issued to the putschists by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore constitutional order."

Macron, who has navigated from one crisis to another since his first election in 2017, will take advantage of the break to reflect on the past few months marked by protests against his pension reform and urban riots following the death of Nahel M., a teenager killed by the police near Paris, and on ways to revive a second term lacking momentum ahead of the next cabinet meeting, on August 23.

Macron, who told Le Figaro he had packed a dozen books with an "eclectic" profile, will perhaps follow the advice of his former speechwriter, Jonathan Guémas, by immersing himself in Giuliano da Empoli's Les Ingénieurs du chaos ("The Engineers of Chaos"). In his novel, the author deciphers the systematic work of communication officers, ideologists, and Big Data experts in bringing populists to power. As the far right continues to attract voters, "the president could learn from this that we need to put forward engineers of the republic and of progress," said Guémas, now a director of strategy with communications powerhouse Publicis.

Macron may also turn to the books of François Dubet, a sociologist specializing in education, social inequalities, and feelings of injustice, to understand the message sent by young rioters in July.

Cautious and silent during the urban violence that erupted after the death of Nahel M., Macron has only addressed the tragedy from a security perspective since. "Order, order, order," he said during an interview on French television last week, adding he would deliver a more "comprehensive" message to the French at the end of the summer. "The tragic death of Nahel M. has brought Emmanuel Macron back to his weak spot, security issues. And restoring order is not a societal project, it is one of the state's duties," said Gaspard Gantzer, a former adviser to Macron's predecessor, François Hollande.

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