Suddenly, Emmanuel Macron returned to the rhetoric of a campaigning president. On Tuesday, January 16, at the mid-point of his second term, the French leader invited the press to the Elysée Palace for the second time since he was first elected in 2017. It was a major media broadcast at prime time for the president to "tell the country where we've come from and where we're going," in his words.

Seated behind a large white desk, against a backdrop in the colors of the French flag, Macron proudly introduced the ministers of his newly reshuffled government, highlighting the fact that they make up "the tightest and youngest government in the history of the Fifth Republic," referring to the small number of appointments (15, so far) and the age of some members – Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, 34, and Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné, 38, are the youngest ever to hold their respective offices. Macron then identified his political rival: the Rassemblement National (RN).

In the run-up to the European elections in June, the far-right party is polling well ahead of the presidential camp. It is therefore urgent, in Macron's eyes, to denounce the "incoherence" of the RN's political agenda, but without resorting to "moral lessons," he said. The party led by Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, he said, is "the party of lies" and "collective impoverishment." The RN's platform has been "completely nicked from the far left," insisted Macron, who noted that being in "the opposition is much easier than the government."

To regain political leadership, the president played with a sense of nostalgia for the France of yesteryear. He promised to do his utmost to "ensure that France stays France," borrowing this catchphrase from Eric Zemmour's far-right Reconquête! party and the right-wing Les Républicains (LR).

The head of state who, in the summer of 2023, banked on "order, order, order" to move on from the riots that followed the death of a teenager at the hands of police, on Tuesday praised "school, school, school." Education, a top priority for the president, is overseen by Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra – who since her appointment last week has been embroiled in controversy for misleading statements about her children's private school enrolment. The education sector is central to the president's national "rearmament" strategy.

Children's education must ensure the cohesion of the nation by developing "republicans," he said. Following the "shock of knowledge" initiative previously introduced by Attal during his tenure as education minister, Macron is now focusing on enhancing moral and civic education. From the start of the 2024-2025 school year, the class time allocated for this subject will be doubled.

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