Will presidential ambitions of rising star of French politics overcome loyalty to Francois Hollande?

As speculation mounts that popular young economy minister could run for president next year, the unpopular incumbent Francois Hollande says 'it is a question of personal and political loyalty'

Economy minister Emmanuel Macron French, right, smiles during a speech by President François Hollande in the Elysee Palace gardens, but tensions between the two men appear to be rising (Reuters)

Two weeks after he launched a new political “movement”, France’s whizz-kid economy minister Emmanuel Macron is on the move in the opinion polls.

Mr Macron – only 38 and never a political candidate at any level – is seen by almost four in ten French voters as an attractive candidate for the presidency next year.

Even more strikingly, a man who claims to be “neither left nor right”, is now the most popular candidate next spring among left-wing voters.

Mr Macron’s popularity and refusal to toe the admittedly unclear ideological and tactical lines of the present centre-left government are also making him powerful enemies. According to reports in the French media, his mentor, President François Hollande, is coming under pressure to cage Mr Macron – or even fire him.

The President was said initially to be relaxed about his young minister’s announcement on 6 April that he was launching a new “movement” called “En Marche!” (forwards) to explore new ideas and new ground beyond the traditional left-right divide. Mr Hollande was said to believe that the initiative could even help attract centrist voters and improve his own feeble chances of winning a second term next April and May.

Senior figures close to Mr Hollande are now said to fear that Mr Macron, who was only appointed economy minister in August 2014, is out of all control of the Elysée Palace and is driven only by his own ambition. In a television appearance last week, President Hollande sent two verbal shots across Mr Macron’s bows.

Asked about Mr Macron's plan, President Hollande said, “he knows what he owes me” and added “it is a question of personal and political loyalty".

Since then, Mr Macron has again angered Mr Hollande and the Prime Minister Manuel Valls by making radical statements which go beyond the cautious, market-friendly reforms of the present government.

He suggested this week that it was time to scrap France’s annual tax on capital wealth, a Socialist sacred cow. He also told the Belgian daily newspaper, Le Soir, that he was developing a “presidential project” – something that he had previously denied.

But a presidential project for what year? French political commentators say that it is unlikely that Mr Macron will oppose his mentor Mr Hollande in the first round of the presidential election next year.

It is, however, uncertain whether Mr Hollande will run for a second term. His approval ratings are at an all-time low of 14 to16 per cent. A series of opinion polls suggests that the President would suffer the indignation of failing to reach the two-candidate, second-round run-off.

In any case, Mr Hollande has repeatedy said that he will not run unless he reverses the rising tide of French unemployment. There is, so far, little sign of that happening.

If the President backs away, political analysts say, Mr Macron would be tempted to run next year, not as the official Socialist candidate but as the representative of his own new movement.

Bruno Cautrès, a polling expert at the premier French poitical college, Science Po, said: “It’s not totally impossible. French voters aspire for something new.

“They are just fed up with the same old politicians. French politics is moving. It feels like the end of an era.”

A recent poll by Viavoice for the centre-left newspaper Libération said that 38 per cent of French voters thought that Mr Macron would be a good candidate for next year. Among left-wing voters, he was first choice with 15 per cent – compared to only 10 per cent for Mr Valls and a calamitous 7 per cent for Mr Hollande.

Powerful obstacles to “Macron-omics” remain, however. To reach the second round of the presidential election, he would have to beat the candidates of the centre-right, far-right and, conceivably, an official candidate of the centre-left.