Emmanuel Macron seems to be surrendering. Or is it tactical retreat?

WHAT SORTUGDP of leader surrenders to the crowd? Any French president of the modern era, you might reply. On December 10th a queasy-looking Emmanuel Macron joined the long list of presidents who have been thrown off course by street protests. Hoping to placate the mob, he promised to increase the take-home pay of minimum-wage earners by 8%, to let workers get overtime pay and Christmas bonuses tax-free and to revoke higher social charges on modest pensions. That was his second -turn in less than a week. On December 6th the government had cancelled the rise in fuel duty that had provoked the (yellow jacket) protests. The direct cost of Mr Macron’s climb-down is about €10bn ($11bn), or around 0.4% of a year. This threatens to send the French budget deficit crashing through the Maastricht limit of 3%, further setting back French hopes for deepening the euro zone. Mr Macron’s finance minister has vowed to find cuts to offset the extra spending.To many, Mr Macron now looks like a president who can be cowed by flying bricks and sagging polls. His ability to bring about further reform is seriously, perhaps fatally, compromised. The , having scented weakness, will surely press for more. A fifth successive Saturday of protest is now promised for December 15th. In a televised address Mr Macron admitted that he had been slow to acknowledge the hardships faced by ordinary people. He might have been more persuasive had he not recorded his speech in the grandest room in the Elysée palace, sitting behind a gilded desk.