French arrogance

Emmanuel Macron is the latest leader to bridle at the idea that democracy entails answering questions from journalists

Journalists are a hassle. This is sometimes because we’re stupid. Asked last week whether the newish French president, Emmanuel Macron, would be holding the traditional press conference on Bastille Day, an official from the Elysée palace explained, regretfully, that he would not. Apparently, his “complex thought process lends itself badly to the game of question-and-answer with journalists”.

Ah yes, that old game. Where journalists blithely ask questions and have the massive entitlement to expect that they might lead to, of all things, answers. It’s hardly surprising that Mr Macron doesn’t want to play. Especially on Bastille Day. One thinks of poor Marie Antoinette, whose cerebral, blue-sky thinking that brioche could provide the solution to a nationwide bread shortage was so ignorantly misrepresented.

Yesterday, Mr Macron suggested he’d push his reforms through by referendum and decree if he couldn’t get them through parliament, which suggests nobody else will be getting to scrutinise him either. Here’s hoping he humours the odd dim hack, perhaps speaking to them as one might children, or dogs.

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