Emmanuel Macron woos mavericks fearing emergence of a French Trump

Emmanuel Macron has launched a charm offensive towards a string of anti-establishment figures amid reports that a surge of power to populist outsiders “scares the hell” out of the beleaguered French president, whose own ratings have taken a tumble.

Aides say there is deep concern at the Elysée Palace about the potential rise of a Gallic Donald Trump or Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian who founded the Five Star movement, in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic and ahead of 2022 presidential elections.

Mr Macron feels it wiser to connect with the fans of such sulphurous personalities, at the risk of increasing their influence, to better neuter the threat, they are cited as saying.

But the move has irked the president's own camp, notably his prime minister, Edouard Philippe, who Mr Macron reportedly overruled by calling one such maverick and promising him concessions regarding lockdown restrictions.

Frictions between the pair came to a head after Philippe de Villers, the founder of France’s most popular historic theme park, posted a text message from Mr Macron he said proved the president had big-footed his “techno-rigid” prime minister to allow the park to reopen earlier than initially planned.

A prominent conservative and traditionalist politician, Mr Villiers is also the brains behind Le Puy du Fou, a park reliving French history in western France which attracts two million visitors per year.

He was apoplectic when the prime minister confirmed it would likely have to remain shut until mid-July along with other such venues due to the outbreak. According to Mr Villers, when he rang the president, Mr Macron agreed it was “scandalous” and pledged to “repatriate” the decision to the defence council at the Elysée where “I’m the boss”.

Shortly afterwards, the prime minister’s office announced that the theme park could now envisage opening as early as June 2.

According to Le Figaro, the prime minister saw red and in a heated exchange told Mr Macron he “can no longer bear this constant questioning of the law”.

Besides Mr Villiers, Mr Macron recently paid a visit to iconoclastic and wildly popular virologist, Didier Raoult, hailing him as a “great scientist”.

The Marseille medic infuriated the French health establishment by trumpeting claims he had found a failsafe Covid treatment that Mr Trump now swears by but which several studies say is ineffective, even dangerous. Mr Raoult denies harbouring political ambitions.

The President also put in a “long call” in recent days to Eric Zemmour, a far-Right, anti-immigrant columnist and author of bestselling book The French Suicide, after he was assaulted in the street during lockdown.

His latest was to stand-up comic Jean-Marie Bigard - a Gallic Bernard Manning famed for his politically incorrect, often scatological sketches and a vocal supporter of the “yellow vests” who took France by storm last year.

In a sketch on social media seen four million times, the foul-mouthed comedian slammed Macron et al as "puppets" and demanded they reopen bars as soon as possible. He too received the presidential call promising to roll out a “timetable” to reopen said bars.

Mr Bigard's response: “I crap on the president and the president rings me up to tell me I’m right. I find that marvellous.”

In a bid to justify the curious calls, one aide told Liberation: “If we want people who heed these figures not to fall into their arms in 2022, we need to talk to them, to show them consideration, that we hear them.”

Aides say the president is fearful one such figure symbolising a “break between the people and the elites” could  “burst onto the scene” and ride the wave to trash the political status quo that swept Mr Macron to power in 2017.

Their biggest fear is someone who can "bring together the far-Left and far-Right", one said.

“It scares the hell (out of him),” one senior presidential adviser is cited as telling Le Monde.

The president has cause for concern: at 35 per cent, his popularity has nosedived seven points to pre-confinement levels following a brief fillip during lockdown, according to a poll on Tuesday.

Seen as "the safe pair of hands" during the crisis, his prime minister meanwhile remains 11 points higher.

In another blow, seven French MPs on Tuesday quit Mr Macron's LREM party, which lost its absolute majority last week after other several other defections.

LREM maintains a majority thanks to an alliance with the centrist Modem group and the rebel MPs said they would not systematically oppose their former party in their new group, Agir Ensemble (Act Together).