The National Rally has accused President Macron of staging a coup d’état by locking down key state posts to stop the populist party from exercising power if they win the presidency and government next year.
Reports that Christine Lagarde, the French head of the European Central Bank (EBC), could step down early have sharpened protests from Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, her lieutenant.
“What we are witnessing is an administrative coup d’état where a president … tries to prevent the next government from acting by installing his friends in every corner of the state,” Le Pen said. “The goal of these appointments is to prevent Jordan Bardella from governing the country as the French people wish, by creating a state within the state that is loyal only to the Élysée.”
Jordan Bardella, Marine Le Pen’s popular number two
TOM NICHOLSON/REUTERS
Le Pen aims to appoint Bardella as prime minister if she wins the April 2027 presidential and subsequent parliamentary elections, or let him run for the presidency if she is barred by an appeal court verdict in July upholding a conviction for embezzling EU funds.
Bardella, 30, has attacked Macron’s nominations as a drive to “Le Pen-proof” France.
“While he will soon leave power, Emmanuel Macron is locking down our institutions to maintain control over them and prolong his influence,” he said.
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With Bardella and Le Pen far ahead in opinion polls, the French and European establishment are bracing for a Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant and anti-Nato party taking over the Continent’s first military and second economic power.
The Élysée Palace and the government, led by Sebastien Lecornu, have dismissed the charges as “baseless polemics”, and accused the hard-right of using Trump-like rhetoric to undermine trust in democratic institutions.
Macron’s camp, however, has made little secret of the fact that he has striven to put reliable figures in command of institutions from the armed forces to the Banque de France and high state councils, to guard against upheaval. Many of the seats are protected from dismissal and last from five to seven years.
President Macron at a meeting with the “Prepas Talents du service public”
BENOIT TESSIER/POOL/REUTERS
This month, the president caused a stir by appointing Amélie de Montchalin, 40, the budget minister and a close ally, to head the Court of Auditors, the independent body that oversees government spending. Pierre Moscovici, its outgoing head, stepped down early, saying he did not want his successor to be named by a National Rally president.
François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Banque de France, also announced that he would step down as early as June, 18 months before the end of his term, enabling Macron to name his successor.
Last year, Macron made Richard Ferrand, a close friend and former minister, head of the Constitutional Council. The president, who is barred from a third consecutive term, also appointed Air Force General Fabien Mandon, his former personal military adviser, as head of the armed forces. More than 60 ambassadorial posts are to be renewed this year, including in Washington, London, Berlin and Kyiv.
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Bardella said the “early replacement of the Governor of the Bank of France is a clear signal that the President wants to bind the hands of his successor on the issues of debt and purchasing power”.
He has accused Macron of co-ordinating with Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, to ensure a successor to Lagarde was chosen before the 2027 French elections. “We are witnessing a democratic power grab by Emmanuel Macron, who is negotiating behind closed doors to seize control of the European Central Bank before the French people can have their say,” he said.
The Rally has retreated from its historic hostility to the EU and the single currency, but the European establishment is horrified by Le Pen and Bardella’s plans for turning the union into a “Europe of Nations”. They want to neuter the federal power of Brussels and impose political control over the independent central bank to end its mission to enforce discipline. They also want to withdraw France from the integrated military command of Nato.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank
KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Lagarde and the ECB have sought to calm speculation, with carefully-worded assurances that she has no plans to leave her post before the end of her term in September 2027. Lagarde, 70, told The Wall Street Journal that she wanted to consolidate the bank’s achievements under her presidency. “So my baseline is that it will take until the end of my term,” she said.