Emmanuel Macron’s approval ratings have plunged to their lowest since he took office in 2017 after his latest attempt to reconnect with ordinary citizens humiliatingly backfired.

The French president has been left with egg on his face after an ill-advised exchange with a TikTok influencer – who it later widely emerged was an Islamic fundamentalist.

The social media personality also once dubbed Mr Macron a “dwarf married to his French teacher” at the helm of a “country the size of a potato crisp”, among other insults.

The botched PR move comes after aides confessed that the 46-year-old centrist was feeling “sad” and isolated as he struggles to exist on the domestic political stage following his disastrous decision to call snap elections last July, which saw him lose a parliamentary majority and much of his once vast executive powers.

The president has scored some unquestionable coups internationally, presiding over last year’s wildly successful Paris Olympics and the Notre Dame reopening ceremony in the presence of world leaders, including the then US president-elect Donald Trump.

However, his popularity at home is disastrously low.

An Ifop poll for Le Journal du Dimanche published last weekend suggested a mere 21 per cent of French voters were happy with his presidency, his lowest approval rating since he first took office seven years ago and the second-lowest in modern French history after Francois Hollande, his Socialist predecessor.