The book about two years of chats between Macron and a journalist. Le Pen, ‘Seb’ and ‘death’ in May 2027

Paris. The portrait that emerges is that of a president intolerant of criticism, scathing towards his political opponents, convinced of his own choices, yet also wistful about the end of his term and concerned for France’s future. An unprecedented portrait of Emmanuel Macron emerges from “Vous êtes tous trop durs avec moi” (Robert Laffont), the book by journalist Françoise Degois, built around two years of private conversations on Telegram with the French head of state. Their relationship began in the summer of 2024, when the journalist, who leans towards the left, spoke out publicly in defence of Brigitte Macron, who had been the target of false insinuations regarding her sexual identity. The president sent her a message of thanks, and from that moment a dialogue took shape that spanned France’s major political crises.

One of the most revealing passages concerns the consequences of the dissolution of the National Assembly, decided by Macron in June 2024 following the triumph of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) in the European elections. When Degois argues that, following the general election, leadership of the government should fall to the left, the occupant of the Élysée Palace replies in no uncertain terms: “You did not win. It was the RN that won.” The messages reveal a president who is closely monitoring the difficulties faced by successive governments following the dissolution, but who has no intention whatsoever of calling into question his own tenure at the Élysée. When the journalist asks him whether he is considering resigning following the repeated government crises, his response is categorical: “Resign? Never! Under no circumstances! I have no intention of walking out. I’m carrying on.”

She speaks with great confidence about the current Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu: “Seb is the ideal man for Matignon”. But when “Seb” decides to suspend the pension reform to avoid criticism from the Socialists, Macron makes his irritation plain. “The markets are watching us,” he warns. And he adds: “If we suspend the reform, I can tell you that we’ll be putting the country in a right mess”. Confronted with the journalist’s provocations, Macron rejects the label of “president of the rich” and defends his supply-side policy: “I have no sympathy for the rich; I don’t love money and I don’t hate it, but the day we no longer have investment, we’ll be in deep trouble.” The book also offers an insight into Macron’s views on the key figures in the current presidential campaign.

The harshest criticism is reserved for Gabriel Attal, his former prime minister and leader of Renaissance: “We have always given him too much. Too much.” Macron is concerned about the rise of the RN and the convergence of traditional right-wing leaders towards Le Pen’s party: “Most of them are flocking to the RN’s trough.” At the same time, he is convinced that Le Pen has a weak point: her relations with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump: “She won’t be able to hide her natural inclination – pro-Putin and pro-Maga – for long. The French detest this.”

The French president complains about criticism from certain left-wing journalists: “Often, you and those on your side are all too hard on me.” He even goes so far as to suggest to his interlocutor how she should describe his detractors: “You should say they’re all scoundrels.” Alain Minc, who was his patron when he was still a banker and is now one of his harshest critics, is dismissed as someone who “has been talking nonsense for some time”. Yet behind the president who refuses to give in, who strenuously defends his actions and continues to deliver scathing judgements on his political opponents, one can also sense the melancholy of a leader who feels the end of his term approaching. In October 2024, during a European summit in Brussels, he wrote to Degois: “I’m bored. It’s sad and devoid of creativity. I miss Mario Draghi and Angela Merkel terribly.” May 2027, he said wistfully, would be like a “little death”.