On Sunday, Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France taking a decisive victory over the far right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen by 66.1 to 33.9% of the valid votes cast. Mr Macron, at 39, becomes the youngest ever president of France.
An economy minister in Francois Hollande’s government, Macron resigned to create his own political movement, En Marche! The new movement has no representation in government, for obvious reasons, and the outcome of the French general elections on the 11th and 18th of next month will be critical to see just how much public support his new, centrist party will garner in the country.
Macron’s election has been seen as a rejection of the mainstream left and right socialist and republican parties which have governed France ever since the creation of the third republic. It is a measure of the popular distrust and disillusionment with mainstream parties that the presidential election choice came down to a new centrist party or a nationalist, ant-European, anti-immigrant right wing alternative.
For supporters of the European project, the election of a pro-EU candidate, even one espousing the view that the EU must change, will be a huge relief. However, as is visible in the Brexit vote, the Dutch election and the close-run Austrian presidential election, many in Europe remain to be convinced that the European project can deliver anything for them.
The underlying strength of Euroscepticism across the continent will ensure that the Brexit deal, should one emerge, will be significantly poorer than the arrangement that the Brits have chosen to walk away from. It is also likely that once major European elections are out of the way and before the European parliament elections, that a “new deal” for Europe will emerge, designed to assuage populism and strengthen support for the EU amongst the very people it exists to serve. It may yet be history’s verdict that, like Titus Oates did for Scott, the UK has made the ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of the EU.