Jean-Claude Juncker’s joy at Macron’s win shows the EU’s big problem

Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the first round of the French presidential election is the good news the EU was waiting for. After Brexit and Trump, Brussels is delighted – so much so in fact that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker ditched the convention of staying out of ongoing elections by calling Macron a ‘pretty obvious choice’. But perhaps Juncker and his allies in Brussels would do well to take the hint from the millions of voters who backed anti-EU parties at the ballot box.

Even from Dover, ‘you could almost hear the popping of champagne corks’ after Emmanuel Macron triumphed, says the Daily Mail. ‘In Brussels…the elation was unbounded,’ the paper says. For the Daily Mail, this reaction shows exactly what is wrong with the EU. After all, those celebrating seem to be ignoring the half of French voters who backed candidates standing against the EU, the paper points out; while the lack of success enjoyed by the two main parties in France is an ‘emphatic rejection of France’s political establishment’.