What Kind of President Will Macron Make?

So, now that Emannuel Marcon is about to take over as France's youngest ever president this Sunday (my brother mentioned in a recent comment that the ridiculously long waiting period here in the United States is unique to this side of the pond), we should ask what kind of a president he will likely be.

The thing is, Macron remains a relatively unknown quantity. I have mentioned before how his close ties to big banks in his past makes me nervous, personally. Also, supposedly, his animal rights record leaves something to be desired, although I will likely need to do more research on that score.

All that said, it should be noted that leaders in other nations of the world, including France, do not have the same ability to completely dismantle what progress was made before, like American leaders often times do. Obamacare, for example, was a far cry from the kind of serious reform that would bring the United States more in line with the rest of the developed world in terms of developing a healthcare system that would indeed cover everyone. Yet, even this modest change is in the process of being dismantled, or at least Republicans are seriously at work trying to "repeal and replace" it.

This does not happen in other countries, at least not with the same level of consistency and relentlessness, as happens in the United States, although it very well might actually have happened had LePen won. 

I have mentioned that I am very glad that LePen did not win, although Macron was somewhat of a mysterious figure to me, admittedly. I still cannot say that I know much about him, although the fears that many in France had was that he would continue the same system, without any significant reforms.

That said, one area that I am very pleased with is that Macron, like most other world leaders, does not take it upon himself to question science or climate change. Not only does he fully believe it is real, and that more needs to be done about it, but he even recently sent a message to Americans working in  the area of alternative energy development  while living in Trump's America are welcome to defect to France. He even went so far as to say that France is their country!

Frankly, some would suggest that this is divisive. However, the world needs to stand up to Trump's narcissism and self-proclaimed expertise in this regard. Trump is no scientist, and anyone who has been paying attention to what Trump says and does by now has a clear picture that he has nowhere near the monopoly on wisdom and expertise in every area as he claims to. In fact, it would appear that all of his answers are merely self-serving and reinforce the narrow mindedness that he ran on during the campaign, and which made so many people in the United States, and indeed the world, so nervous to begin with.

So, Macron's message is welcome, and I personally hope that France does benefit financially from scientists going over there to work on the development of new, clean technologies.

Also, the European Union is relatively safe, for the time being, with Macron in charge. That said, he had better get some things going strong, because the Front National and LePen are still there, defeated in battle but still ready to continue their war, and just waiting for Macron to slip and fall, so that they can take over.

France has a lot of problems right now. The unemployment rate is unacceptably high, especially among youth. There are racial tensions the likes of which have not been seen in a long time. There are some people who have tremendous benefits, while others are paying for these and working hard, but not seeing much in the way of returns. Many there, like here in the United States, have completely lost faith in political leaders as having anything in the way of answers to address these issues, or to improve the lives of the French in a meaningful way. 

For a very long time now, I have felt that France and the United States are almost like mirror images of one another, only their approach is entirely different. Yet, the problems that each faces are similar in many respects. It was almost laughable how much the French presidential election resembled last year's American presidential election!

Emmanuel Macron will be France's president very soon, and I wish him the very best, and hope that he can deliver on his promises to make France work better. Hopefully, the energy and effort that he and his supporters put in the successful campaign will benefit France as a country, now that he is president.

Whether or not it does, we shall see. In the meantime, it seemed fitting to add some videos that hopefully reveal a little more about who Macron is: