Photo by: Барвенковский via Wikimedia Commons

French President Emmanuel Macron is being confronted by a people’s revolution for his plans to give his wife official “first lady” duties.

According to reports, more than 150,000 people have signed a petition to oppose the president’s plan to give Brigitte Macron an office, personnel, and even an allowance, which will all come from public funds to be appropriated for that purpose.

During his electoral campaign, Macron wanted to clearly delineate the duties of the French president’s wife by giving her an official status. He also described the current situation as a “kind of French hypocrisy.”

Neither the French constitution nor accepted customary practice grants the president’s spouse an official status. Nonetheless, the constitution does not explicitly prohibit the same, which, in effect, gives the president the power to create a role as he may deem necessary. This means that the first lady may have her own office, staff, and security guards, which will be paid out from the public budget and estimated by the official auditors at about €450,000 (£406,000) a year.

Thierry Paul Valette, one of the leaders who filed the petition, said: “There is no reason why the wife of the head of state should be given a budget out of public funds. At present, Brigitte Macron has two or three assistants as well as two secretaries and two security staff, and that’s enough.”

Valette likewise said that these matters should be best threshed out through a referendum process, by which the French people get to participate in the decision-making process of creating a special status for Brigitte Macron.

On the other hand, Daniel Fasquelle of the centre-right Les Républicains party said that Macron was paying for his incompetence to perform his public functions.

“He’s not up to the job, either in his behaviour or in addressing the issues. We are seeing promises not being kept, hitches, flip-flopping,” Fasquelle added.

In other countries, spouses of the chief executives do not enjoy official roles. These include Joachim Sauer, husband of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Philip May, Theresa May’s husband, among others. In America, however, a law enacted way back 1978 resulted to the creation of an official role for the president’s spouse. At present, the first lady, Melania Trump, has a team of 12 staff and an official status.

The public uprising comes in the heels of Macron’s declining popularity. Polls last month revealed that he had dropped seven percentage points, with only 36 percent of French people saying they were contented with the new French president. At the same period in the past, Macron’s predecessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy were at 56 percent at 66 percent, respectively.