Christian Jacob: the moderate French Conservative who can take on Macron

The recent death of Jacques Chirac at the age of 86 was a reminder that it is not enough to be respected if you wish to prosper as President of France: you have to be loved.

Emmanuel Macron will never be loved. He may or may not end up admired (the jury is still out), but there is little obvious affection for him, even among his own party. It is often said of him that he is the French Tony Blair – young, bright, ambitious and in search of a third way through the ideological maze. But while Blair, up until the catastrophe of his support for the US-led invasion of Iraq, could point to a litany of achievements (education reforms, the introduction of the national minimum wage, the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland), all that Macron has to his credit thus far is surviving the gilet-jaune insurgency and presiding with aplomb over the most recent G7 summit.

 If he is to win a second term, he needs to get a move on, most obviously in navigating the minefield of employment law and boosting French economic growth, currently among the most sluggish in Europe. It is not enough to be regarded as a driving force in the European Union; he has to make waves at home. 

Up to now, he has been lucky in the paucity of the political opposition ranged against him. Marine Le Pen’s renamed Rassemblement National – formerly the Front National – seems to have withered on the vine since Le Pen lost the Presidential election so comprehensively in 2017. It is not that the Far Right no longer has support in principle among French workers, it is more that the leadership looks to have lost its way and is floundering.

The Socialist Party, in the meantime, has largely disappeared from view. Having been almost wiped out in 2017, it may be years before it is in any position to offer an alternative plan to Macronism. Further to the Left, France Insoumise, the Marxist vehicle created by the former teacher Jean-Luc Mélenchon to appeal to what is left of revolutionary France, has been tainted by Mélenchon’s obvious extremism and seeming sympathy for the policies of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

But a new contender may at last have appeared on the horizon who, if the French press is to be believed, could actually make a positive impression. Last weekend, Christian Jacob, a 59-year-old farmer who was for ten years mayor of Provins, an historic town east of Paris, won the leadership of the centre-left Republican Party (Les Républicains) with a thumping two thirds of  votes cast, replacing the lack-lustre Laurent Wauquiez. Jacob was a late-career disciple of Chirac, who appointed him to the Government as minister for the civil service in 2002. More recently, he led the Republicans in the National Assembly, waking them from the torpor that overcame them after their former leader, François Fillon, was forced to leave the scene mired in controversy and facing charges of corruption.

The new leader is said to be personable and uncomplicated, resolved to restore a middle-of-the-road Conservative viewpoint to the national discourse. Crucially, he enjoys an excellent rapport with his constitutency and, so far as one can judge, with the French at large. He brings no obvious baggage to the job and appears ready for the long haul. He claims that his ambition is to restore the centre-right in Parliament and that he has no plans to stand against Macron in 2022. But if he changes his mind, the fact that he can connect with ordinary voters could prove invaluable.

Beyond keeping his country out of the Iraq war in 2003 – for which he deserved all the credit heaped upon him at the time and for years afterwards – Chirac is best remembered for his positive outlook and ability to attempt only what he thought could actually be achieved. Vitally, though an intellectual, with interests that included Japanese art and Chinese porcelain, he possessed the common touch. There was nothing (other than his many sexual liaisons) he liked better than spending time with his fellow countrymen and women, whether in a bar over a glass of beer or in the fields of his former rural constituency.

The two Presidents who succeeded him seem destined, by contrast, to be little more than footnotes in the roll-call of French history. The thrice-married Nicolas Sarkozy would have driven into the Élysée in a golden chariot if he could. He loved being President. It was as if, having been mocked at school, he had got his revenge by being elected head boy. But what did he do? What did he achieve? Nothing. As the King of Bling, revelling in the high life while France struggled with the effects of the global financial crash, he fully justified the regret felt by Chirac for having appointed him to high office in the first place. In enforced retirement, he has engaged in a certain amount of political meddling, but has otherwise contented himself with writing his bestselling memoirs and putting together his defence against charges, soon to be tried in court, of bribery and corruption.

François Hollande – Monsieur Normal –was out of his depth almost straight away. Little or nothing was accomplished during his five years in office. The attacks in Paris and Nice by Islamist terrorists, in which hundreds died and many more were wounded, would have tried any President’s abilities. But the Socialist Hollande, though he put on a brave face, looked to be more than a little lost. Politically, his mandate, like Macron’s, was built around promises of reform to France’s employment laws. Instead, having failed to push any change through to a conclusion, he sought refuge from his duties in a brace of all-too-well documented affairs. The first of these ended in angry recriminations when the woman involved – a well-known journalist – wrote a corruscating account of their relationship that sold 600,000 copies, while the second, with the actress Julie Gayet, will be remembered for photographs of the President being chauffered on a motor-scooter at midnight to his new lover’s apartment.

There was no coming back from this. Chirac’s love life was no less complicated, as was Mitterrand’s. They were French after all. But both knew how to preserve their dignity. Hollande, by comparison, was an embarrassment.

And so to the present day. Macron – happily married to a woman 20 years his senior – is dignity incarnate. While clearly enjoying the trappings of power – the Republican Guard dressed in their finery; extensive use of the his Mediterranean retreat; the ability to address his fellow politicians from a podium in Versailles – the one-time hedge fund manager is more than an ego on legs. He has spent months rethinking and texturing his programme and remains determined to live up to his campaign hype by finally getting things done. The problem – events, dear boy! – is that things keep getting in the way.

It is not impossible that a fresh adversary who is neither vain nor weak-willed will bring out the best in Macron. It could be that Jacob will wilt under the onslaught. But if he doesn’t – if he stands up, from the respectable right, to the much-derided “President for the Rich,” French politics might suddenly get a lot more interesting. And Chirac might at last have an heir.

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