With all the attention on Eastern Europe, this month’s French presidential election has rather crept up on the global political classes. What once seemed set to be a second successive walkover for President Emmanuel Macron is now far from guaranteed, with the possibility of a victory for the far-right, anti-Muslim candidate Marine Le Pen not out of the question. Back in 2017, Macron became the youngest president in French history at just 39. He smashed the old two-party duopoly with his En Marche movement in just a year — the dynamic new broom to sweep away the cobwebs of the old French order. Would he be the man to restore French pride and abate the widespread pessimistic sense of decline that hovers over so much of France? Well, the insurgent of 2017 is very much the establishment elite man of 2022. CONTINUE READING