The rise and fall of Macronomics

PARIS — When Emmanuel Macron came to power in 2017, he was hailed as the business-friendly former Rothschild banker who would turn France into a world-beating investment destination by slashing public spending and lowering taxes.
Seven years later, the French president’s economic credentials are in the dock.
Thursday’s eye-watering budget adjustment — €19.4 billion in tax increases and €41.3 billion in spending cuts — is a stark sign that France’s money management has veered off the rails on Macron’s watch.
The president’s political opponents are relishing his sudden fall from grace on fiscal helmsmanship — and are sharpening their knives.
Traditionally, Macron always sought to score political points by styling himself as the adult in the room on economic files. In this year’s parliamentary election campaign, he slammed both far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon and far-right leader Marine Le Pen as irresponsible profligates who would topple France into the financial abyss. 
Now the president is getting a taste of his own medicine as opponents and allies alike — remember that potential successors are now seeking to show their mettle — attack his track record. France’s public deficit is expected to hit a jaw-dropping 6.1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product this year, compared with 2.6 percent in 2017.
“They have ruined France and lied to the French,” far-right leader Le Pen said last week, slamming “the financial incompetence of the ‘Mozart of finance’” a barbed reference to Macron’s earlier career as an investment banker at Rothschild.
Perhaps more strikingly, Édouard Philippe, who served as prime minister during Macron’s first term and is in the running to succeed him, also accused the outgoing government of hiding the truth from the public and from the EU on the massive level of France’s debt.  “Nobody believes it!” he said, referring to the promise to bring deficit in line with EU rules by 2027.
Economists and independent authorities such as France’s central bank and court of auditors are now also questioning Macron’s economic recipe, which was characterized by a mix of tax reductions for companies and wealthy individuals combined with generous subsidies to companies.
The new government appointed after the defeat of Macron’s centrists in July’s snap legislative election and led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier is now facing a severe budget crisis.
Barnier is accusing his predecessors of failing to tell the the French the whole truth about the country’s parlous budget. He said he found “a very degraded situation, much more degraded than has been said.”
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