He is courted by American and European diplomats, applauded by a media machine dedicated to vilifying his critics and still has four years left in a presidential term secured last year with a landslide re-election victory. But President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s strongman leader for more than a decade, never looked so lost as when he appeared this week in an official video on the vast rooftop terrace of his presidential offices to share a bowl of cherries with two lieutenants — and gripe about street protesters calling them rude names, including “abnormal lunatics, murderers and criminals.”Over-the-top insults, a regular feature of Rottweiler tabloids loyal to Mr. Vucic and pro-government television stations, used to be directed mostly at the president’s enemies, at least in public. But, after weeks of street protests set off last month by two mass shootings, Mr. Vucic is now on the receiving end — and on the defensive like never before since establishing himself in 2012 as the pivot around which Serbian politics turns. The protests, with calls for the dismissal of senior law enforcement officials and the withdrawal of broadcasting licenses from two pro-government television stations, have grown into a wider revolt against a “climate of violence” blamed on Mr. Vucic and his media attack dogs.

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Persons: Aleksandar Vucic, —, Vucic, ” Organizations: American, Serbian