I don’t follow French politics too closely but I expected Macron to be a lefty lightweight loon like Trudeau in Canada. I was very surprised when trump popped over to Paris and Macron welcomes him with open arms rather than speechifying and hand wringing against him (looking at you, Teresa May). Then I’ve seen some articles like this where he seems sensible. I don’t know what to make of him, probably should read some more.
He is a leftie but seems to have been coached in Clintonian triangulation. He’s not fighting populist sentiment outright, he’s appearing to placate it. Appearing to. What this tells me is that they’re still worried about Le Pen and Front Nationale, otherwise they’d just do as they pleased.