Macron's security obsession hands france to Marine Le Pen
By Aoife Gallagher · Reporting from Dublin ·
By treating economic desperation as a police matter, Emmanuel Macron has left France fractured and vulnerable to the far-right's promise of order.
Emmanuel Macron is governing a country he no longer understands. By treating a systemic collapse of public faith as a mere security breach, he is handing the keys of the republic to the far-right. He believes that if he can just clear the streets, the crisis will vanish. He is wrong. You cannot curfew your way out of a cost-of-living crisis, and you cannot arrest a failing education system.
The high price of a detached presidency
The anger currently burning through French cities is not a mystery. It began in the suburbs of Paris. High school students and teachers demanded an end to overcrowded classrooms and teacher shortages. As CBS News reports, the movement grew. It drew in trade unions and those struggling with rising costs.
The scale of the fury is immense. On October 17, 550,000 people joined marches nationwide. This is the ghost of the 2005 French riots, where systemic failures in the periphery exploded into arson and state of emergency curfews. This time, the fire is wider. A group forced entry into the city hall in Limoges and set it ablaze.
The state responded with the only tool it trusts: force. But the violence is a symptom, not the disease. The people are paying for a budget that ignores them.
The fantasy of the security solution
Macron's response is a textbook study in the blindness of power. He has leaned on Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to restore order. Nuñez admitted that police "lost control" in major cities. He even offered his resignation. Macron rejected it, claiming the security forces needed "continuous command."
The government's strategy is now one of containment. According to Anadolu Agency, authorities have extended curfews in Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse. They have banned undeclared gatherings near the Elysee Palace and the National Assembly.
The strongest case for this approach is that the republic cannot survive if mobs torch city halls. Its advocates argue the state must punish rioters to protect the rule of law. But this is a fantasy. Law and order are the masks power wears when it has no answers. When the state fails to provide basic services, the "rule of law" feels like a threat to the poor, not a protection.
A gift for the National Rally
While Macron manages the police, Marine Le Pen is managing the narrative. The National Rally is holding its political convention in Orléans on October 24–25. Le Pen is set to launch her presidential campaign there.
The mechanism is the same as the Gilets Jaunes: a grassroots coalition of the economically precarious, ignored by traditional institutions, leverages chaos to force a reckoning with the cost of living.
Le Pen is no longer the outsider. A Paris appeals court in July 2026 lifted a ban on her holding office, allowing her to run in 2027. She has turned a conviction for embezzling over 4 million euros in European Parliament funds into a story of political persecution.
Macron has no leverage left to stop her. He has no money to buy off the strikers. He is fiscally paralyzed.
The numbers tell the final story. An Ipsos poll put Macron's approval rating at 15%. In the same period, Le Pen held 33% to 35% support. Fox News reports that the US State Department warns of "potentially more confrontational" protests this weekend.
Macron believes he is fighting "criminals" and "radical far-left groups." In reality, he is fighting a mirror. He has built a presidency of bypasses and decrees, leaving the periphery to rot. By the time he realizes that security is not a substitute for solidarity, the National Rally will have already won.