Après Macron, le déluge

France is voting after three weeks of campaigning, backstabbing, attacks on more than 50 politicians so far, some light rioting, promises by the left to reverse the laws of fiscal gravity, worried bond-traders, ranting Trots, green-religionist raving – and, coming up tonight, the decimation of president Macron’s Ensemble group in the National Assembly, and with it his hopes of using the final three years of his presidency to implement his unfulfilled vision of France.

The disorder of France has been exclusively provoked by Macron through his dissolution of the National Assembly on 9 June, after the president’s repudiation in the European Parliament elections. French voters joined Germans, Italians, Dutch and others in a revolt against the political order. In France, it was directed against Macron personally.

Macron advocated wider and deeper EU ties. He was crushed by the rampant Rassemblement National, the National Rally, the one-time neo-fascist Le Pen political dynasty, née National Front, headed by Marine Le Pen, daughter of the notorious Jean-Marie Le Pen.