Notebook: Getaway man
Orbánitis, Red Sea test, President Valls, and American honorifics
After four glorious years at the helm of the European Council1, Charles Michel has handed in his notice to run for a seat in the European Parliament in June. The EU’s political class and thinktankerati are, as Politico’s potty-fingered headline writers were delighted to learn, “pissed off”.
They’re right to be, at least regarding administrative good manners. On a €393,000 salary, Michel could have risked a short period of unemployment after his full term ended on 30 November. Instead, not only will he have to quit by early July to take up his guaranteed seat, but he will almost certainly be forced out earlier due to the conflicting interests of campaigning and chairing.
However, a second charge – that he’s handed the EU over to Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s national-conservative prime minister, is ridiculous. Yes, Orbán’s government will assume the union’s rolling six-month presidency in July. But, no, the five-month imaginary power vacuum left by Michel is hardly enough time for Orbán to hand Ukraine to Russia, roll back minority rights across the 27 member states, and help Donald Trump back into the White House with EU cash.
In a fraught IPS editorial, Green MEP Daniel Freund warned: “The Orbán presidency poses a serious risk to European democracy because it is happening at a time when the agenda of the whole European Union is shaped for the next five years. Orbán’s ministers would chair the very meetings where the course is set for Europe’s future”.
He may be a nativist, a social reactionary, a demagogue, and a liberal-baiting troll but Orbán simply lacks the power to do any of this. This is Orbán Derangement Syndrome. Council presidents prepare, chair, and follow-up meetings but the agenda will be determined by what governments – especially the biggest and most powerful ones – want to discuss, and by what the European Commission drafts. In a Brussels election/transition year, precious little is done anyway. Between May and the end of November, the parliament will convene for a grand total of 22 days and most of those will be haggling over who gets what institutional position.
Since he moved into the Europa Building in 2019, the prosaic nature of his role has been Michel’s problem. The job description – efficient management of the European Council’s agenda – was beneath him. The son of a foreign minister and European commissioner, himself a Walloon minister at 24 and Belgian prime minister at 38, Michel was instantly bored as a chairman. He compensated for this by turning himself into a diplomatic wild rover – treading all over the feet of the commission president and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy – and then, more recently, by surfing LinkedIn.
The heads of state and government who complained about his incompetent chairing have only themselves to blame. They chose him because he was a serving member of the European Council, wanted the job, had the right political (liberal) flag, and lived locally. Unlike his predecessor Donald Tusk, Michel was the lowest common denominator, and they snapped him up. This year, they should do a little more equal-opportunities hiring.
We just had another real-world lesson in why the holy grail of federalists - majority voting on foreign and security policy and a European military - will remain as elusive as the mythical cup. The diversion of Red Sea shipping due to Houthi attacks is a strategic problem for Europe, above all - a fact recognised by the local presence of French and Spanish frigates. But, when the opportunity came to join American-led strikes against Houthi military infrastructure, it was only the British and Dutch who took an active role with support from Germany and Denmark. Although the French publicly blamed the Houthis for this escalation, they declined even to sign a statement in support of the operation, claiming that it would undermine their middleman role in the Gaza war. Italy and Spain reverted to their long-standing pacifistic positions.
Reclaim the right
I don’t feel too sorry for Manuel Valls, the former French socialist (PS) prime minister, since his involuntary early retirement includes marriage to a Spanish business heiress and homes in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Menorca. Yet he is living proof that no prophet is accepted in his own country.
When it was unfashionable, midway through Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007-12 conservative presidency, Valls argued for supply-side economic reforms that François Hollande later rejected and then accepted, for an uncompromising defence of the secular state, and for policing that reassured working-class voters. After Russia’s creeping invasion of Ukraine began in 2014, in line with Hollande, Valls resisted repeated calls from left and right for compromise with Vladimir Putin. A popular interior minister, his promotion to the premiership in 2014 was meant to be a springboard to a presidential run in 2017. Then Emmanuel Macron happened.
But, last week, 21 months into his second term and with his movement trailing Marine Le Pen’s RN by ten points in the run-up to the European Parliament elections, Macron conjured up the Vallsiste genie. No acknowledgements, of course. And no recognition from the commentariat, either, who’d rather stick a “right-wing” label on Gabriel Attal, Macron’s new prime minister.
Let’s look at who we’re talking about here. Attal’s political awakening came with the protests against conservative labour-market reforms in 2006. He joined the PS and, after graduation, worked as an advisor in the private office of Marisol Touraine, Hollande’s health minister. In 2014, he was elected as a PS councillor in southwest Paris and – along with many party officials in 2016-17 – defected to Macron’s movement. Gay, socially liberal, economically centrist, what is it that qualifies Attal as “right-wing” and made him so popular with conservative voters?
As education minister, he banned the abaya in schools. The wearing of “signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation" has been outlawed for two decades. But, to test the authorities’ tolerance limits – as kids do – the wearing of this robe was proliferating in schools. Attal banned it, championed a core curriculum, and instituted a nationwide anti-bullying programme. President Valls would have been proud. With Attal in place, Macron went further and populated Attal’s new 14-member cabinet with eight ministers from Sarkozy’s old movements (the UMP and LR) including prominent leftie-baiter Rachida Dati. Wrapped around the Vallsiste iron fist was a liberal, europhile and Putinophobe velvet glove in the form of Stéphane Séjourné, the new minister for foreign and European affairs - also a former PS activist and ministerial advisor.
For Macron, Attal is a short-term expedient to take the fight to the RN’s youthful and well-liked heir-apparent Jordan Bardella. The president also looks like he’s fattening up the 34-year-old’s CV in readiness to compete with Édouard Philippe, Bruno Le Maire, and Gérald Darmanin for the centrist succession in 2027. This alone is interesting. Raised inside the Rocardien2 left, Macron wasn’t happy to leave his movement only to figures from the centre-right. Typically, the premiership is the kiss of death to presidential hopes. So far, under the Fifth Republic, only two (out of 25) prime ministers have gone on to the presidency: Georges Pompidou and Jacques Chirac. And it’s doubtful Chirac would have pulled it off if his second term (1986-88) hadn’t been blessed by a socialist president as a foil.
Jobs for life
For non-Americans, one of the odder aspects of consuming political media is the hosts’ chronic use of titles for ex-officials. In 2024, no old-continent interviewer would introduce “Chancellor Merkel”, “President Sarkozy”, or “Commissioner Mandelson” but Hillary Clinton is still “Secretary Clinton” ten years after leaving the cabinet. The Republican primary debates are peppered with “Governor Christie” and “Ambassador Haley”. Most ridiculous of all, Rudy Giuliani qualifies for “Mister Mayor” 22 years after he staggered out of New York’s Gracie Mansion.
I’d assumed this was protocol, but it isn’t. A title or rank held by many people at the same time – for example, Professor, Doctor, or General – can be retained. Mayor, Governor, Secretary, or President – on the other hand – should be applied to the incumbent only. Harry Truman had no problem with this, but his successors found it harder to let go of the P-word and the media’s self-interest in flattery meant the practice trickled down. Article 1 of the constitution includes the stricture that “no title of nobility shall be granted by the United States”. When the first Senate suggested adding “His Mightiness” or “His Elective Majesty” to the title of President, the House of Representatives – with the blessing of the first president – was having none of it. More of that.
Pick of the pods
Anecdotes are no substitute for scientific polling, but carefully chosen and well-questioned focus groups can be a critical corrective to wishful political thinking. For anyone interested in this US election cycle, Sarah Longwell's The Focus Group Podcast is essential and depressing listening. This weekend, she's got Iowa polling specialist Ann Selzer on her show, listening to state Republicans before Monday's caucuses. For catching up with the latest inside stories from Israeli politics, this Israel Policy Forum conversation between Neri Zilber and Tal Shalev is low-tech but fascinating. Want to know more about the Houthis? Go to This Is Not A Drill/The Bunker and hear Gavin Esler talk to Helen Lackner, author of Yemen In Crisis.
The grouping of EU heads of state and government (plus the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission) that sets the political direction and priorities of the union.
Disciples of Michel Rocard who, from the mid-1970s, sought to pull French socialism more into the tradition of European social democracy and opposed François Mitterrand's nationalisation-first approach.