Brigitte Macron urges French to 'have faith' in her beleaguered husband

Brigitte Macron, France's first lady, has urged the French to 'have faith' with her husband Emmanuel as his approval ratings have collapsed to 40 per cent - a huge drop since the start of the summer.

The slide in the polls comes just two days before Mr Macron's government is to unveil the details of crunch labour reforms to unions.

While at the presidential couple's country home in Le Touquet, a seaside resort in northern France popular with Britons, Mrs Macron, 64, was asked whether she had a message for her compatriots for "la rentrée" - the French word for the return to school and work after the long summer holidays.

"They must have faith," she told BFM TV.

"I tell them that my husband is doing everything to ensure that (la rentrée) takes place as best as possible."

Aware that his lofty style has started to grate on the French, Mr Macron has promised to talk to the nation once or twice a month, and on Tuesday named a new spokesman for the Elysée Palace, the journalist Bruno Roger-Petit.

His relatively inexperienced cabinet held a seminar at the Elysée on Monday in which ministers were urged to be more forceful in defending his reforms.

Mrs Macron's plea to trust her husband came as police guarding the presidential couple's country home in Le Touquet vented fury for being ordered to be more "discreet" so as not to "disturb the neighbours". 

The officers were told to stand outside the residence in the chic resort without their automatic weapons after residents allegedly complained their presence was making them feel uneasy, according to one union.

They were told not to bring out the "long weapons" - HK G36 guns - but instead keep them in their cars, and not to "disturb neighbours".

The Alliance police union lashed out, telling RTL radio that the order was an "affront" and "cast into question their professionalism" at a time when France was "under a state of emergency, on maximum terrorist alert with the vigipirate (anti-terror security) plan on level 'scarlet'".

As for the order not to disturb the neighbours, the union said: "Since when have the police caused 'disturbances'? Since when has protecting the most important figure in the country annoyed our fellow citizens?"

It demanded to know whether the order was a "presidential wish" or an "excess of bureaucratic zeal".  

Police guarding politicians or public figures have toted automatic weapons capable of taking on Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists since the Paris attacks of 2015, in which 130 died when Isil gunman went on the rampage in the French capital.

"This is unjustified," Fabrice Ledoux, regional representative of CRS Nord for Alliance told Le Parisien.

"Our colleagues have been trained and are perfectly apt to use this weapon to defend what one could qualify as a sensitive site. The irony is that soldiers of the Sentinelle (national anti-terror) operation are patrolling Le Touquet with their Famas (weapons) and we're being asked not to disturb the neighbours."

Locals quizzed by Le Parisien said they had no problem with the police. "What does disturb the neighbourhood and locals are busybodies who come night and day to take photos of the place," said Mr Ledoux.

While the local state authorities said that agents stationed in cars was an acceptable alternative, one union source said: "If you think it's alright to force us to waste time opening a door in case of attack, then everything's fine then." 

Mrs Macron made no reference to police guards or the neighbours.