It’s now time to say: Congratulations President Macron

There is perhaps some remote mathematical chance that France’s new elected monarch will be struck down by a meteorite before he is officially inaugurated in a grand parade on the Champs Elysée on May 14th, amidst a 21-gun salute, helicopters flying overhead, the Garde Républicaine in full-dress uniform on shining horses, generals posed upright in their ceremonial 4x4s, bands playing, bunting flapping.

Barring that, Mr President, you appear to have played a blinder, winning the keys to the Elysée in what appears to have been a stunning political insurgency, and you have done so promising to reform an immobilised French economy.

Your victory will be hailed as evidence that Europe has overcome the challenge from the extreme right, and that the European project will continue to be at the centre of the French polity, no matter that 55 per cent voted against the European constitution, and more than 50 per cent voted for eurosceptic or Frexit parties in the first round of the election.