Macron is not a fan of theses social policies, he is right leaning.
His governement reduced labor protections, butchered educations, worsened public healthcare, and do nothing for the environment.
Economically right-leaning but culturally left-leaning, he's let in tens of thousands of migrants, does not expel them (cf. the "OQTF" stories pretty much every day), and on top of that, uses taxpayers money to fund them throughout the country.
You are mixing up stuff to fit your scenario.
OQTF stories are up to police incompetence, not lax imposed by the governement.
Culturally left-leaning if very bold given the recent pension reform debacle, bypassing any democratic recourse.
Also very bold statement given the police repression of mosts of the protests.
There is nothing Macron that is left leaning, relative to France politic spectrum.
>> Interesting. Right-leaning governement (if not "far-right" according to some), but has no control over illegal migrants routinely roaming around committing crimes. I thought a key marker of "the right" was being (too) strict on order and ruthless implementation of the law.
Im not arguing the point. It's a sad state of affairs. But Le Pen was painted here as a female version of Trump. So that's why Macron was perceived as representative of French progressiveness.
The vote (for president) still came down to, "Guy who thinks protecting the workers is the end of the world" or "Lady who seems way too comfortable with actual nazi parties", so americans just had a lot of empathy.