Emmanuel Macron wins first battle with head of French military

French President Emmanuel Macron thumbs up after visiting the Istres air base, southern France. Photo / AP

By Rory Mulholland analysis

The head of the French military went to war with the President. He lost, but the five-star general's battle with Emmanuel Macron may signal the end of new leader's honeymoon period and the start of fierce resistance to his ambitious reforms.

The 39-year-old President had until last week played a near perfect game since moving into the Elyse in early May, winning praise, admiration and even adulation at home and abroad.

Then came the battle with General Pierre de Villiers, the head of the armed forces, which many commentators saw as the first mistake by the centrist whose arrival in power decimated the mainstream parties which for decades had ruled France. The general resigned on Thursday, a few days after Macron very publicly rebuked him - essentially accusing him of insubordination - over proposals to slash the military's budget by around 1 billion by the end of the year.

Opposition parties and most media commentators were appalled. Le Figaro accused the President of "shooting himself in the foot" by behaving "like a little departmental head who is obliged to remind everyone who's boss". Libration said Macron's "little authoritarian fit" could be a sign he was drunk on power and said it was time for him "to grow up a bit".

"As he has shown no sign that suggests he realises he may have blundered [in his handling of de Villiers], there is the risk that people will come to see him as a president who thinks he is infallible and who hates anybody contradicting him," Bruno Jeanbart, of pollsters OpinionWay, said.

The spat with the general is likely to be the first example of the resistance the President is about to face. The country's second biggest union, the hardline CGT, has called for a nationwide strike and protests in September to oppose labour reforms. Macron plans to push the labour reforms through by decree, hoping that he can succeed where his predecessors failed. But he is already facing opposition from several sectors as his government tries to find 4.5 billion in savings by the end of the year to bring the deficit under 3 per cent of GDP as required under EU rules. University staff and local government chiefs are incensed by proposals to cut budgets.