He attacked the remote and imperious style his former economy minister has adopted since he became president last May. "I never signed up to the monarchical conception of the Fifth Republic's institutions. "It's a paradox: the French want to be able to elect a king but they also want to be able to overthrow him at the drop of a hat," he told Der Spiegel in an interview last year. "As president, one can't expect to be loved. He later scrapped it and adopted more investor-friendly policies, though he never recovered from a rebellion inside his party.

Source: Economic Times April 11, 2018 12:45 UTC