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PARIS — France’s Emmanuel Macron will arrive in Brussels for a key European Council meeting Thursday with his reputation as the continent’s idea man long gone and replaced by a new one: chief party pooper.
As European Union leaders gather to game-plan in the face of existential crises ranging from combatting the rise of the far right to preventing a bad Trump-Putin deal on Ukraine, they can no longer rely on Macron’s grandiose ideas.
Conversations with 10 diplomats and officials from across the European Union, all of whom were granted anonymity to candidly discuss the French president’s political fortunes, suggest the 47-year-old centrist’s domestic troubles and focus on his legacy have made him an obstacle to progress rather than a motor of it.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposed “drone wall” to protect European skies from Russia’s increasingly invasive unmanned aerial vehicles?
Unrealistic, per Macron.
European Council President António Costa’s idea to streamline the EU accession process by eliminating the need for unanimity?
Nah. France isn’t giving up its veto power.
Making our planet great again?
Maybe one day. But now is not the time for the due diligence directive requiring companies to monitor their global suppliers for human rights and environmental abuses. Or for 2040 climate targets, for that matter.
Macron in recent months has become more cautious, balking at proposals that risk generating a backlash in France, and more prickly with regard to proposals he doesn’t control. France has instead poured its energy into slashing red tape.
In recent weeks the French leader has been pushing for more controls on migration and for red tape to be slashed, while lobbying for new rules to keep children off social media and bidding to create carveouts for automakers on green targets. Hardly the stuff of European dreams.
“This Macron has been consumed by domestic troubles,” said an EU diplomat. “He is no longer the European champion we once knew.”

Not the same man(u)
When it comes to the changes the European Union has seen in the last decade, it’s hard to understate Macron’s influence and foresight. Speaking at the Sorbonne University in 2017, he argued forcefully for a more muscular Europe that wasn’t so dependent on partners overseas, either for manufactured goods or for its own defense.
His call fell on deaf ears at the time. Today, however, the European Commission and leaders across the bloc preach Macron’s gospel of “strategic autonomy” as they try to diversify away from China and beef up the continent’s military capacities in the face of Russian aggression and American military retrenchment.
Macron earned the nickname of the EU’s “think-tanker in chief,” and his blizzard of initiatives and ideas for reforming Europe defined his early tenure as a leader on the world stage.
Fast-forward to October 2025, though, and it’s become clear that politics and legacy loom large in Macron’s calculus.
Just look at enlargement.
Macron was long seen as a supporter of bringing new members into the European Union to increase the bloc’s economic and geopolitical heft. He spearheaded the European Political Community as a sort of waiting room for wannabe EU members in 2022, and a year later pledged to bring aspiring candidate countries into the bloc as “fast as possible.”
Little wonder, then, that Macron’s allies had trouble understanding France’s decision to oppose Costa’s proposal to lift the veto power of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán on parts of the accession process. A heavyweight from Macron’s Renew group in the European Parliament said the move was “in total contradiction” with Macron’s previous commitments.
“It’s a fundamental error,” the individual said.
According to a top Macron ally, the French president simply doesn’t have the political capital to back some of his own ambitions, especially those that provide fodder to Euroskeptics and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.
“It’s not the right moment, we have the far right breathing down our necks,” the ally said.
“Any talk about Albania, Montenegro entering the Union is a gift for … Le Pen,” he said, noting that French farmers would be the first to take to the streets to protest the entry of agricultural giant Ukraine.
Waning influence
Influence in Brussels has been a casualty of France’s chaos at home. Macron has cycled through five prime ministers in less than two years and was nearly forced to hunt for a sixth after his current pick, Sébastien Lecornu, resigned after his first government lasted just 14 hours. The French president eventually reappointed Lecornu and the crisis abated, at least temporarily.

While successive French governments have shared similar views on EU affairs, their successive collapse has left France increasingly less influential in Brussels.
“If you have a non-functioning government for one-and-a-half years, that gives you a little bit less influence on decisions,” an EU diplomat from outside France said.
The churn makes it harder in the room when ministers meet, the diplomat added.
It also makes it difficult for the French government to craft and circulate the ever-important policy papers ahead of ministerial meetings that drive the agenda and represent national priorities.
As Macron approaches the twilight of his presidency, he might yet sketch out some grand designs for Europe, but his ability to turn dreams into reality has been largely eclipsed.
Even if the French president somehow pulls off yet another great escape and manages to find a way through the political mire with a government that lasts and a budget that passes, the crushing truth for those working in the institutions and embassies of Brussels is that Macron’s influence is seriously weakened. And that his own grand pro-European project is finished.
Diplomats from outside France are already speaking of Macron in the past tense and talking about his “legacy,” even though he’s not due to leave office until 2027.
“He was something special,” one told POLITICO.
Victor Goury-Laffont contributed reporting.