French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly railed against the limit on presidential terms preventing him from running for re-election in 2027 as “disastrous bullshit” as his centrist globalist bloc continues to struggle to find a successor to his reign.
During a closed-doors meeting with leaders of opposition parties on Wednesday in Seine-Saint-Denis, the 45-year-old leader reportedly declared: “Not being able to be re-elected is disastrous bullshit,” participants of the meeting told the Le Figaro newspaper.
Macron, a former Rothschild banker, was initially elected to the Élysée Palace in 2017 and re-elected as president last year. Under constitutional reforms passed by his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008, the President of the Republic is currently limited to two consecutive terms in office.
The president was reportedly responding to a suggestion from the leader of the populist National Rally party Jordan Bardella to further amend the constitution to limit the president to a single seven-year term in office.
Responding to his reported comments, former leftist presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared that Macron has “cracked”.
French essayist Maxime Tandonnet warned that the comments may indicate that Macron is considering revoking the limit in order to maintain his “authoritarian” grip on power in Paris.
“A formula allowing three mandates, i.e. fifteen years – and why not twenty years? – would risk amplifying the scourges of self-to-one, cronyism, clanism and corruption,” Tandonnet wrote.
The political commentator went on to note that the longer one is in high office, the more likely it is for a president to become deluded from reality, writing: “Life in palaces and planes, surrounded by servants and courtiers, in the obsession with the curve of popularity polls, translates into a radical break with the daily life of the French.”
At present, it may prove difficult for Macron to muster the political support to change the constitution, however, if a suitable centrist successor fails to emerge as the 2027 elections approach, the president may attempt to turn to his old playbook and gin up fear of the so-called far-right and the possibility of populist Marine Le Pen seizing power in order to convince various factions in the National Assembly to back removing the term limit.
Even if he is unsuccessful in changing the constitution before 2027, it does not necessarily mean the end of Macron’s political life.
As opposed to the United States, the term limit rule in France only prevents politicians from serving more than two consecutive terms, meaning that Macron could theoretically run for president again in 2032.
This possibility has already been floated by key Macron allies, including president of the Neo-liberal Democratic Movement party, François Bayrou, who said last year of a potential third Macron term: “Money doesn’t interest him, and neither do pompous job titles in international organisations… Inevitably, he will be a reference in French political life, not for the past, but for the future.”