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France’s Macron Reshuffles Cabinet In Effort To Quell Political Instability
French President Emmanuel Macron announced a long-awaited cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday morning, widely seen as an attempt to stabilize a historic drop in popularity and an increasing sense of political isolation.
For nearly two weeks, France has not had a full government, following a series of surprise resignations after the summer, each of which served as a major blow to Macron’s public image and ability to govern effectively. But on Tuesday, under mounting pressure, the 40-year-old president announced a new roster of names.
The changes were not extensive, which led many to question why the announcement had taken so long. The choices were also not entirely unpredictable: Christophe Castaner, who ran Macron’s political party, was given the post of interior minister, overseeing national security, one of the most important in the French government. While Macron also named new culture and agriculture ministers, other important postings were left as they were.
The news did little to quell a sense of panic in the Élysée.
“He won with a mix of luck, intuition and audacity — today he has less luck, and he has made some noteworthy mistakes,” said Gilles Finchelstein, the director of the Jean Jaures Foundation, a Paris-based think tank with ties to the Socialist Party but also to Macron’s campaign.
There are indeed signs that Macron’s luck — once seemingly bottomless — may be dwindling. In recent weeks, for example, his administration saw two high-profile resignations that caught the young president off guard.
In late August, Nicolas Hulot, his exceedingly popular environment minister and a former television personality, announced he would leave the government in a live radio broadcast. Hulot blaming a disconnect between Macron’s words and deeds on climate change, which Macron — in a series of grand, wide-ranging speeches — had sought to make one of his signature policy commitments.
“Have we begun to reduce the use of pesticides? The answer is no,” Hulot said during that broadcast. “Have we started to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? The answer is no. Or to stop the erosion of biodiversity? No.”
In September, Gerard Collomb, France’s interior minister, also resigned, but arguably with an even sharper critique. Collomb, 71, attacked what he called Macron’s “lack of humility.” In a television interview in early September, he used the language of antiquity to cast Macron as a tragic hero.
“Hubris, it’s the curse of the gods,” Collomb said, “when, at some point, you become too sure of yourself, that you think you will take it all away.”
More than a year into his presidency, Macron — viewed from abroad — is still often seen as the antithesis of President Trump: the young, photogenic French president, only 40, is a globalist who has forcibly condemned nationalism and populism, advocated for greater European integration and repeatedly called for action on climate change, and sometimes in perfect English.
But Macron’s image at home is vastly different, and has been for some time. Within France, Macron is seen as a monarchical figure, and he is often caricatured as the second coming of the ancien régime.
To some extent, this is par for the course: the French always turn against their presidents, especially at this point in their five-year tenures. Macron was elected in May 2017 on a wave of optimism, and nearly 18 months later the sheen has worn off as it did for virtually all other recent French presidents. The difference, however, is that Macron’s once sky-high popularity has now plummeted to a lower level than any of his three previous predecessors. Few have started as high and fallen so far.
According to a September poll from IFOP, a leading French polling agency, Macron’s popularity is currently at 29 percent, a significant drop from the 34 percent he had in August. The poll was based on a survey of 1,964 people. When Macron was elected in 2017, his approval rating was 66 percent, more than twice his current standing.
For Jérôme Fourquet, a Paris-based political analyst and the director of IFOP, part of the explanation is proximate: the polls dropped significantly over the summer, from 40 percent in June to 29 percent in September, in part due to the August fallout over the “Benalla Affair,” in which a member of Macron’s security detail was caught on camera beating labor reform protesters.
Benalla was wearing police garb without authorization, and the Élysée attempted to cover up the scandal. Macron, Fourquet said, had campaigned on “the promise of exemplary republic” and had pledged a “rupture” between “the old world of politics and a new world that is transparent and proper.” But the Benalla Affair suggested that his presidency was business as usual.
There is the reality that many ordinary French voters call Macron “the president for the rich” and perceive him as out of touch and even arrogant. In September, for instance, Macron told a young unemployed gardener that all he needed to do was cross the street to find a job in a cafe or a restaurant. “If I crossed the street I’d find you one,” Macron said.
“He has not really changed since before he was president, and the same discourse doesn’t work the same way because he is now president of the Republic,” said Finchelstein, referring to Macron’s rhetoric.
“Before, he was direct; he was different from the others. Now it’s that he’s arrogant. The French don’t see him in the same way now that he’s president. All that creates a distance.”
There are also the concrete concerns of ordinary voters. Unemployment in France has not decreased significantly under Macron, and is currently at 8.9 percent. In September, Macron unveiled an 8 billion euro ($9.27 billion) program to combat poverty in France, but critics said that the measure — announced more than a year into Macron’s tenure — was not a real priority.
“After a year, it’s the moment to do something,” said Fourquet. “There’s the perception among many voters, It’s time. And he has not done much better than the others.”
Iran will begin the funeral proceedings for its late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 4 in Tehran, more than four months after his assassination during US-Israeli airstrikes.
His burial is scheduled for July 9 at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.
Khamenei was killed on February 28, 2026, with Iranian authorities confirming his death the following day on March 1.
The funeral has been postponed repeatedly.
Iranian authorities are anticipating attendance of up to 20 million people across ceremonies in multiple cities. A period of national mourning has been declared to accompany the events.
Funeral processions for Khamenei will move through at least three major cities: Tehran, Qom, and Mashhad. Each procession is expected to last at least 24 hours, per Khamenei’s will.
Khamenei served as Supreme Leader for 37 years, having assumed the role in 1989 after Khomeini’s death.
AFP
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he was calling off strikes on Iran and flagged the signing of a possible deal with Tehran after top-level talks.
“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have… cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
“Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly,” he added.
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Iran had warned Washington on Thursday that it risked wading into an “endless quagmire” of war and soaring energy prices, after Trump vowed to launch a new round of airstrikes and to seize an island oil terminal.
Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with the Americans, parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, issued his stark warning after the two sides exchanged overnight fire and Trump threatened that US forces would hit “VERY HARD TONIGHT”.
“Wrong strategies and impulsive decisions will reset the entire board for the worse, explode energy infrastructure and markets and create an endless quagmire that you will be stuck in for years,” Ghalibaf said.
The war, which began on February 28 with a wave of US-Israeli strikes on Iran, was paused under an April truce, but efforts to hammer out a permanent end to the fighting have since stalled.
US forces have also, since the ceasefire, hit radar arrays and disabled Iranian ships, and Tehran has maintained a chokehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” Trump said, in a post on his own social media platform, referring to a Gulf island that hosts Iran’s biggest oil export terminal.
General Ali Abdollahi, head of the Iranian military’s central headquarters, warned that “if the United States once again seeks to carry out attacks against heroic Iran, it would receive a harsher response than before, and the flames of war, in addition to creating insecurity in the region, will become more widespread and far-reaching”.
The conflict has destabilised oil and gas prices, fuelling inflation and fears of recession in many economies. On Thursday, the World Bank lowered its global growth forecast to its lowest level since the coronavirus pandemic, predicting it would drop to 2.5 percent in 2026, from 2.9 percent last year.
More than 1.2 million people filled the streets of Madrid on Sunday for a mass by Pope Leo XIV at which he called for a renewal of the Catholic faith in Spain.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia joined throngs of devotees waving Spanish and Vatican flags in Cibeles Square for a service filled with religious symbolism.
In his homily, Pope Leo said Spaniards should not look at religion as “a museum of the past to be visited, but a school of faith from which to draw even today”.
The mass comes on day two of Pope Leo’s seven-day visit to Spain, a traditional Catholic bastion where religious observance has been declining sharply in recent years as in much of western Europe.
A huge logistical and security operation was in place for the event, after which the pope led a traditional procession along a route lined with white and yellow carnations — the Vatican flag colours.
Organisers said there were more than 1.2 million people attending in the square and the surrounding area.
Nico Aldeanueva, 28, who was visiting from Philadelphia in the United States, said the pope was “a very unifying force in a moment where we have division across so many different fronts”.
“We have, it seems like, never-ending conflict and for the time being here you get to hit pause and get to enjoy the moment and feel the faith.”
Ana Milagros, 64, who was waving a Vatican flag, said she thought the US-born pope seemed “approachable” and “very sincere”.
“There is a lot of polarisation and differences in politics, in social matters, in the economy,” she said, adding: “The pope is trying with this visit… to help all of us.”
Later on Sunday, Leo will meet the leading lights of culture, sport and the economy at an arena, with the aim of fostering dialogue between faith and modern civil society.
Around 56 percent of Spaniards identify as Catholic compared to 90 percent in the 1970s, according to a survey last month by the Centre for Sociological Research, an autonomous government body.
On Saturday, 500,000 mostly young attendees congregated with Leo outside Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium for a prayer vigil that stretched into the night.
Leo kicked off his visit with pomp and ceremony at a reception in Madrid’s royal palace, where he called for an end to “polarising narratives” and “sterile simplifications”.
The pope also praised Spain, whose left-wing government has sparred with his native United States as well as Israel over wars in the Middle East, for its “active commitment to peace and solidarity among peoples”.
Leo is due to visit Barcelona on Tuesday and Wednesday, where he will notably bless the Sagrada Familia basilica’s recently completed tower, which made it the world’s tallest church.
His trip will end with a focus on migration on Thursday and Friday in the Canary Islands, a key destination for irregular arrivals, with thousands dying in the Atlantic Ocean trying to reach them.
AFP
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