With a little more than six months left in his term, the credit long extended to the president on the international stage is now evaporating. Already deeply discredited at home, Emmanuel Macron is now seeing his reputation suffer abroad, following the violence that accompanied protests over the rising cost of living on October 17. The European press, stunned, has discovered that the French authorities' loss of control – with streets descending into chaos – has been added to a debt situation that already alarmed them. October 17 is being depicted as the death knell of a singular, personal political adventure.

The timing of France's social upheaval could not be worse for Macron, as it is a boon for the country's opponents. The "international reactionary movement," which the French leader has rightly fought against, seized on images of looting to bolster its most caricatured propaganda.

In Vladimir Putin's Moscow, these events fueled the narrative of French decline and the collapse of a civilization supposedly overwhelmed by unchecked immigration. On his social network, Donald Trump sought to distract from the prospect of defeat in the November 3 midterm elections by targeting Macron as a new scapegoat. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, also on the campaign trail, sarcastically claimed to have seen Hamas in the streets of Paris on October 17.

Beyond these excesses, criticism has also surfaced among France's European partners and conservative governments – such as in Austria, Hungary and Poland – echoing the influx of undocumented migrants from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, which once destabilized Spain. In Warsaw, Prime Minister Donald Tusk drew a direct link between the violence and immigration, insisting that his country "would not pay for the mistakes of others." After the failed dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale in 2024 left him sidelined domestically, Macron turned his focus abroad.

He made some 50 foreign trips in 2025 and over 30 already in 2026. Yet even here, the president first elected in 2017, who once won over Europeans with his enthusiasm and determination, now faces a cold reassessment of his record as his term draws to a close.

Macron may be credited for consistently urging the European Union to strengthen its sovereignty vis-à-vis other powers. In response to Trump's predatory intentions in Greenland, the timely deployment of a small detachment of soldiers was also considered a shrewd move. As evidenced by the coalition of the willing assembled to support Kyiv after a hypothetical ceasefire, his unwavering support for embattled Ukraine led him to take many initiatives. But those efforts came with limited resources – and limited results.

After Joe Biden, Trump completed the dismantling of Macron's diplomatic ambitions. The president's persistence in pressing France's interests in Brussels eventually came to be seen as arrogance, especially as it is the EU as a whole that foots the bill.

In an effort to offer solutions, Macron is concluding a lengthy trip to the Gulf, whose necessity is being questioned at a time when France is ablaze. Europeans now fear the shockwave that a far-right victory in France's 2027 presidential election would bring – a legacy Macron is desperate to avoid.