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Interesting summing up of the situation in France, not good news for our esteemed PM.
For once there was no nasty election surprise for Europe’s political establishment - the pollsters have got it spot-on. As predicted, the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-Right Marine Le Pen will face off for the French presidency.
This news will have been greeted with glee in Brussels where Mr Macron - who is predicted by those same pollsters to win by a comfortable 20-point margin in two weeks time - is seen as a potential saviour of their troubled Union.
With his pledge to strengthen EU external borders with a 5,000 strong force, maintain the Schengen free-travel zone and appoint a finance minister for the eurozone, Mr Macron has pledged to start a “rebirth” of the European project.
But there are several hurdles in the way of Mr Macron before he can crank up Europe’s Franco-German motor, which has been sputtering badly these past two decades because of France’s continued failure to pass serious economic reforms.
Le Pen and Macron fans celebrate poll results
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The first obstacle is Ms Le Pen herself. She looks unlikely to win, but her campaign will - as Mujtaba Rahman at the Eurasia Group notes - force Mr Macron to defend vigorously immigration, the EU and open borders. In the age of Isil and austerity, these are all things which the French public have become notably more lukewarm about.
In short, if Ms Le Pen runs a strong campaign then Mr Macron may not win as easily as the pollsters expect.
Supporters of far-right leader and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, celebrate
Supporters of far-right leader and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, celebrate CREDIT: AP
In any event, he will emerge from the process with nothing like the 82 per cent mandate won by Jacques Chirac when he saw off Ms Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, in the 2002 run-off.
Next, if Mr Macron wants to implement his agenda he will need to win a majority in the French legislative elections in June. Many political observers believe that is very unlikely to happen.
Mr Macron’s ‘En Marche!” movement has only existed for a year, and even though he has promised to put up candidates in every seat, his rag-tag mix of political defectors and candidates drawn from civil society will be fighting entrenched incumbents.
Much more likely, is a majority for Les Republicains - the centre-right party of Nicolas Sarkozy - which was damaged by the scandal-plagued candidacy of Francois Fillon but remains a strong force on the ground.
Unless he can fashion an electoral miracle, Mr Macron will end up in the Elysee Palace, but forced into a ‘cohabitation’ with his political rivals, severely limiting his room for to deliver the reforms needed to reawaken France.
Mr Macron is often likened (not always kindly) to “a French Tony Blair” but in today’s Europe, riven with insecurity caused by stagnation, immigration and terror, his mushy third-way policies cannot gain the broad traction or enthusiasm they did in the heady, boomtime Blair-Clinton years.
Alas for France, with its 25 per cent youth unemployment and sclerotic, bloated state, Mr Macron will struggle to deliver the structural reforms that will get Germany to sign up to his schemes to reboot the euro.
Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, or Onwards !, and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, takes ballot slips in Le Touquet
Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, or Onwards !, and candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, takes ballot slips in Le Touquet CREDIT: REUTERS
For those that dream of a rebirth of Europe - or even, like Theresa May, a strong and stable Europe with which to cohabit after Brexit - the risk is that a Macron presidency, weakened from the outset by the lack of a parliamentary majority and the fracturing of french politics, is likely to disappoint when the initial sugar-rush of his election fades.
If Ms Le Pen makes another strong showing in the European elections in 2019 and if she can point to the failure of another establishment internationalist to deliver the change needed for France to live up to his high opinion of itself, she will see that as her chance.
Front National strategists, in private, like to say that 2022 is their real goal when it comes to winning power in France. Looking at the neophyte figure of Mr Macron, and Europe’s intractable political and economic morass, that is an outcome that cannot be discounted.
