Like all of the worst nightmares, we have awoken only to find that we are still dreaming. Emmanuel Macron’s victory over Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election is not the end of anything. If Remain had won in 2016, that would not have signalled the end of the Brexit project either.
In France, as across Europe, the centre and the centre Left appear to think they can repel the far Right by giving it ground and aping its rhetoric. The result is a ‘new normal’, in which the far Right has become entrenched as the main opposition to the status quo. Defeating them will take an altogether different strategy, which has yet to be tried.
Five years ago, in the spring of 2017, Le Pen stood on the brink of the French presidency and Europe stood on the brink of disintegration. As the French centre-Left collapsed, opponents of the far Right were forced to rally around centrist newcomer Macron, whose platform married unapologetic pro-Europeanism with an open determination to confront the unions and ‘modernise’ (i.e. deregulate) the French economy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leading an insurgent campaign from the ‘sovereigntist’ Left, failed to break through to the final round and remained in third.
