While Emmanuel Macron formalized his candidacy for re-election on February 3, the time has come to take stock. Did the president honor the commitments of the 2017 candidate? The editorial staff of franceinfo selected and analyzed the future of 100 promises, among the 400 or so formulated in its program at the time.
>> We checked the 100 key promises of Emmanuel Macron’s program in 2017. How many did he keep?
Verification of the implementation of each of these promises reveals that 46 were held, 28 partly held and 26 not held. Before you dive into this detailed review, here are the big takeaways.
Economy: an applied roadmap, despite some pitfalls
Emmanuel Macron had made the modernization of the economy one of the major axes of his 2017 campaign. “He is reputed to be more competent than his opponents on the subject, he who is a former finance inspector and a former banker”recalls Bruno Cautrès, researcher at the CNRS and teacher at Sciences Po.
Five years later, the former tenant of Bercy has remained rather faithful to what he had promised. “There are a lot of promises kept at the start of his mandate, where he leaves on hats wheels, then it gets tougher from the summer of 2018 with the Benalla affair, then the ‘yellow vests’ and the pandemic where he responds to crises and is no longer in the initiative”, continues Bruno Cautrès.
At the start of his term, Emmanuel Macron, for example, lowered the corporate tax rate to 25% as he had promised. The Head of State also replaced the ISF, at the end of 2017, by the IFI for tax households whose net real estate assets exceed 1.3 million euros. The former candidate also pledged that “all workers” may have “the right to unemployment insurance”. Since November 2019, the law allows working people, deprived of unemployment insurance, to benefit from a lump sum allowance of 800 euros for a maximum of six months in the event of receivership or judicial liquidation.
The candidate also wanted “increase net wages by abolishing employee contributions”. They were effectively erased by the Social Security financing law of 2018. With the revaluation of the activity bonus, this measure enabled employees to benefit from a purchasing power gain of 3.5% in average over the five-year period, according to a study by the Institute of Public Policy, November 2021. Another flagship promise: to abolish the housing tax for 4 out of 5 households in 2020. The finance laws voted since 2017 have clearly marked its disappearance progressive.
Sometimes the announced objective is narrowly missed. The current president wanted, for example, to reduce unemployment to 7% and create 1.3 million jobs. Unemployment has fallen well during his five-year term, but in the fourth quarter of 2021 it stabilized at 7.4%. Between the beginning of 2017 and the end of 2021, the net creation of salaried jobs is estimated at 1.14 million, taking into account the latest figures from INSEE. A little less than the initial promise.
Another pitfall in the economic balance sheet: the promise to cut 120,000 civil servant positions has not been kept. “This can be a marker for the right-wing electorate and Valérie Pécresse could remind them”, notes Bruno Cautrès. Finally, the establishment of a universal pension scheme, another flagship measure of candidate Macron, has not been completed, in particular because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Society: an ambitious program almost respected
In this area, the Head of State has respected his commitments. “There are a lot of things that have been done but it hasn’t been sold very well to public opinion”, notes Bruno Cautrès. Its promises in terms of education have thus been largely fulfilled. Its emblematic measure of halving the number of CP and CE1 classes in priority education networks (REP) was applied from the start of the 2017 school year. The baccalaureate reform was also introduced from the start of the 2019 school year.
The opening of medically assisted procreation (PMA) to single women and lesbians was also a significant proposal. It was definitively recorded when the bioethics bill was adopted on June 29, 2021. However, the promise to recognize the filiation of children born abroad with GPA (surrogacy) was only partially kept. Since August 3, 2021, the transcription of a foreign civil status document for children born to surrogacy abroad is in reality limited to the biological parent only.
In terms of health, while the Covid-19 crisis has hit France for more than two years, the results are mixed. Most campaign proposals have often been kept, but not always to the letter. This is the case, for example, of 100% coverage of glasses, hearing aids and dental prostheses, without an increase in the price of mutual insurance. The “100% health” reform does allow full coverage of certain devices, but the price of mutual insurance increased by 3.4% in 2022 compared to 2021, according to the Mutualité française.
Emmanuel Macron also promised to increase the salaries of caregivers and optimize the financing of hospitals. This resulted in July 2020 in the famous Ségur de la santé and its 33 proposals. Eighteen months later, more than 1.5 million caregivers received a salary increase of 183 euros net per month, according to the ministry. But on the ground, these salary increases are considered insufficient.
Security and justice: promises rarely applied to the letter
The regal “is minus the highlight” of Emmanuel Macron and his record in this area is quite meager, according to Bruno Cautrès. Its flagship measure – the recruitment of 10,000 police and gendarmes – is however held. According to a report by the Senate Finance Committee, 10,529 police and gendarme positions were created between 2017 and 2022.
The candidate also promised to “combat jihadist ideology and those who promote it in France”. To date, 22 places of worship have been closed while the CCIF and BarakaCity, two associations “Islamists”according to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, have been dissolved.
Emmanuel Macron had also established several proposals concerning Islam in France. As promised, the government has “helped Muslims to restructure Islam in France”, in particular through the Forum de l’islam de France (Forif). Two other promises relating to the training of imams in the values of the Republic and the creation of closed deradicalization centers have, for their part, been partly kept.
In addition, the candidate had promised to create a compulsory and universal military service of one month. Five years later, the account is not there. The government’s objective has changed into the generalization of Universal National Service (SNU) to an entire age group, ie 700,000 young people each year. However, in 2021, the SNU only concerned 15,000 young people. In 2022, the government is counting on 50,000 volunteers to take part in two-week cohesion stays.
Another promise of 2017 evaporated: to build 15,000 additional prison places over five years. However, the government’s prison real estate program, published in April 2021, provides “the net creation of 15,000 additional prison places over a period of ten years”, not five. In detail, 7,000 places are planned by 2022 and another 8,000 between 2025 and 2027. But these first 7,000 places will not all be ready by the end of the five-year term.
Environment: proposals with little follow-up
In 2017, ecology was not the main focus of candidate Macron’s program. “He believes in the action of the State, a productivist State. His matrix is progress, technology and industry”, recalls Bruno Cautrès. Once at the Elysée, the president had nevertheless promised to do ecology “fight of the century”. Some commitments have been kept: the ban on shale gas and new hydrocarbon exploration permits, as well as the imposition of at least 50% organic products, quality labels or local, in canteens.
The candidate also assured that he would close all the coal-fired power stations: three out of four have ceased their activity and that of Cordemais (Loire-Atlantique) will operate at least until 2024.
Other promises are simply not kept, such as doubling the capacity of wind and solar energy. According to figures from the Electricity Transmission Network (RTE), the delay seems too great to be made up for before the end of the five-year term. Same reservation on the establishment of a timetable providing for the gradual elimination of pesticides. The government backed down on the glyphosate ban and temporarily reintroduced neonicotinoids for the beet sector. On the calendar side, the reductions in the sale of pesticides provided for by the Ecophyto II+ plan have not been met. “With Macron, we are in the pragmatic ecology of small steps and not in a radical ecology of big steps”sums up political scientist Daniel Boy at franceinfo.
Institutions and political life: major reforms that have not seen the light of day
He had made the renovation of political life one of the markers of his campaign. Five years later, “it’s nothingness”judges Bruno Cautrès harshly. “Finally, what he sees as his biggest contribution to the institutional is his own election. With him, the National Assembly has rejuvenated, is more equal and a large number of deputies had never been elected previously.”
In view of the proposals launched, the results seem meager. Certainly, the great law of moralization of public life has partly been achieved. The advisory activities of parliamentarians are now strictly regulated, they can no longer hire a member of their family and the special pension scheme has disappeared. Other promises have remained a dead letter, such as the prohibition of the accumulation of more than three successive identical terms. Or the presentation, by the President of the Republic, of his national and European assessment, once a year, before Congress. This only happened twice during the mandate.
The abolition of at least a quarter of the departments and the reduction of a third of the number of parliamentarians have also not seen the light of day. Finally, we must mention the introduction of a dose of proportional representation in the legislative elections. The measure was not officially included in the program on which franceinfo based its analysis, but it was nevertheless announced by candidate Macron through several statements. The commitment was not respected.