In his first appearance on a radio talk show since he was sworn in, the increasingly unpopular French president came out swinging against an EU he is better known for defending against opponents such as Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin.
The EU is letting down its middle classes, ignoring their legitimate fears and exposing itself to a populist wave that could ultimately submerge the bloc, Macron told Europe 1 radio a few months before his centrist La République En Marche starts campaigning for the European Parliament election.[...]
His target was not the right-leaning populists who oppose him face-to-face. By railing against European “ultra-liberals,” Macron was pointing to all the factions that have resisted his plans, articulated during his presidential campaign and during a landmark speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, to make the EU a more “protective” bloc via tighter security cooperation, taxes on digital giants and tougher restrictions on state-aid takeovers. [...]
An example of “ultra-liberal” resistance was on display this week in Brussels, where Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was pitching a French plan to impose a 3 percent revenue tax on companies like Google and Facebook. After more than a year of high-level diplomacy, the best Le Maire was able to extract was a vow from Germany to consider enforcing the tax from 2020, only if and when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was unable to come up with its own solution for taxing digital companies.
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