COPY LINK

POLITICS

Macron under fire for honouring Bezos with top award

President Emmanuel Macron was under fire from the French left on Friday for handing billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos the country's highest order of merit.

Published: 24 February 2023 16:19 CET

Macron under fire for honouring Bezos with top award

Jeff Bezos in Washington, DC on October 22, 2019. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP)

Critics said the award showed Macron really was “the president of the rich” as he is regularly labelled by members of the opposition.

Macron’s office on Friday confirmed a press report from a day earlier, saying Bezos had been given the Legion d’Honneur (Legion of Honour), the French republic’s highest award, in a small ceremony.

The event’s took place on February 16, the same day hundreds of thousands of people joined strikes and protests against Macron’s plan to reform the French pension system.

Critics say the reform plan is particularly unfair towards low-income workers without a university education, because they would see their already long working lives stretched out even further.

Macron’s office kept quiet about the award ceremony until weekly Le Point broke the news in its latest edition.

On Friday, the Elysee Palace defended the decision to honour Bezos, calling him “a partner in France’s initiatives for the protection of the climate and of biodiversity, especially of forests”.

But the award unleashed a wave of angry comments from Macron’s political opponents.

“He is more than ever the president of the rich,” said Bastien Lachaud, a deputy for the leftwing LFI party.

“Having already given a decoration to (Saudi Crown Prince) Mohammed bin Salman, a murderer of journalists, Macron has now awarded the Legion of Honour to Jeff Bezos, a champion of tax evasion, and a destroyer of jobs and nature,” he said on Twitter.

Rare award for business leader

Addressing Bezos directly another LFI member, Leila Chaibi, said that “while we were marching against his pension reform, Macron awarded you a decoration in France’s name for avoiding billions in tax, destroying the planet and spying on staff. A well earned prize from the president of the rich”.

Communist party leader Fabien Roussel said Macron’s “doctrine” was to “punish all French people and reward the billionaires”.

Socialist deputy Herve Saulignac said he “really can’t understand” the justification for the award. “Is it for being the best tax evader? Or for being the greatest gravedigger of traditional retailers?”, he asked.

Bezos’s net worth is $119 billion, according to financial data company Bloomberg, making him the world’s third-richest person after luxury empire LVMH’s chairman Bernard Arnault and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

Some reports said that Arnault was at the Bezos award ceremony, but a source with knowledge of the guest list told AFP that he had not attended the event.

The Legion of Honour, first established by Napoleon Bonaparte at the start of the 19th century, is France’s highest order of merit for both soldiers and civilians.

Primarily aimed at French nationals, it is also regularly awarded to foreigners if they are deemed to have served France or its ideals.

Past United States recipients include singer Bob Dylan, jazz star Miles Davis, culinary icon Julia Child, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Business leaders rarely get the award, although former Airbus chief John Leahy and Jeong H. Kim, former president of Bell Labs, are among the American exceptions.

Member comments

Anonymous - 24 February 2023 at 17:28 CET

This is really sycophantic and disgusting. Unbelievable!

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Cohabitation

The far-right Rassemblement National of three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and current party leader Jordan Bardella are tipped to be the party with most seats after the second round on July 7th.

If the RN and its allies did secure a majority in the Assemblée Nationale – and current polling suggests this is doubtful – Macron would find himself in a “cohabitation“, in which the president and government are from opposing parties.

Post-war France has experienced three such forced marriages. All were between the left and the centre-right with the last from 1997-2002 between President Jacques Chirac and Socialist premier Lionel Jospin.

Cohabitation: What happens in France’s political ‘forced marriages’?

A cohabition between the Macron and his far-right arch-enemies would likely be a much unhappier affair.

While the far-right would be able to implement part of its domestic programme, on, for example, curtailing immigration, only the president can call a referendum or trigger a vote on constitutional changes.

The president, who usually sets foreign and defence policy, could also find his hands tied if the RN appointed nationalist defence and foreign ministers opposed to his worldview.

Coalition

France has spurned coalitions since the post-war 4th Republic (1946-1958) when the country went through 22 governments in 12 years.

Since losing his parliamentary majority in 2022, Macron has sought to cobble together alliances in parliament on a vote-by-vote basis or to force through legislation without a vote rather than form a pact with another party.

The RN or the left could try do the same if they fall short of a majority but a minority government of the far-right or left would likely fail to pass a vote of no confidence.

Aware of the risks, RN leader Bardella has said he will refuse to become prime minister unless he wins an outright majority.

Macron’s camp hopes that in the event of a hung parliament it could form a coalition with moderates of the left and right.

As part of its outreach to possible allies, Macron’s party has not entered candidates in 67 constituencies where centre-right or centre-left candidates are running.

But Macron has limited his options by putting the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) — the dominant force in the NFP — on a par with the far-right in what he calls the country’s “extremes”. He accuses LFI of anti-Semitism, which it rejects.

Caretaker government

Another option would be for Macron to appoint a technocratic non-partisan government which all parties could get behind.

Camille Bedock, a political scientist at the Emile Durckheim centre in Bordeaux, cites the example of Italy, where respected former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi formed a national unity government in 2021 when Italy was in turmoil. It lasted a year-and-a-half.

Bedock said Macron could also decide to leave the current government headed by his party’s Gabriel Attal in place in a caretaker capacity for a year. He could then call new elections.

This would have the benefit of ensuring continuity through the Olympic Games (July 26th – August 11th) when the country will be under intense global scrutiny.

Whether the far-right or left would support such a move, which would effectively buy Macron time to try turn around his presidency, is highly uncertain.

Macron resigns

The most dramatic scenario would see Macron resign if faced with the prospect of being neutered by the far right or the hard left.

Le Pen, who is expected to try succeed Macron in 2027 presidential polls, has warned that he “will have no choice but to resign” in the event of a “political crisis”.

Macron has vowed to remain on office until the end of his second term in 2027, whatever the outcome.

You can follow all the latest election news HERE or sign up to receive by email our bi-weekly election breakdown