Emmanuel Macron likes to take risks. Confronted with anti-vaccination protests during the Covid-19 pandemic, the French president could have backed down as he did in the face of the anti-government gilets jaunes demonstrations three years earlier. Instead he raised the stakes, declaring his wish to “piss off” the unvaccinated and insisting that only the inoculated be allowed to enter bars and restaurants.
Macron’s sometimes unpopular enforcement of digital “health passes” and later “vaccination passes” paid off and saved lives. At the start of the pandemic, few people were more sceptical of vaccines than the French. Today, 78 per cent are fully vaccinated, more than in Germany, the UK and the US.
He has taken another kind of risk with his re-election battle. Preoccupied with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his responsibility for European leadership during France’s tenure of the rotating EU presidency, Macron waited until the last moment before briefly declaring his intention to seek a second term as president.