I was at the French embassy in London on May 7 2017, the night that Emmanuel Macron won the presidency for the first time. When the screens flashed up news of his decisive victory over Marine Le Pen, there were cheers from the assembled guests.
Seven years later, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National has just won the largest share of the vote in the first round of French legislative elections and Macron’s party has been trounced. Her protégé, Jordan Bardella, may soon become prime minister and she is the bookies’ favourite for the presidency in 2027. The hope that Macron had permanently buried the threat from the far right turned out to be an illusion.
To be fair to the French, they are not the only country to have witnessed a liberal false dawn. Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election provoked all sorts of breathless commentary about the emergence of a post-racial America and a permanent Democratic party majority. Obama was cool, good-looking, a Harvard man. He delighted his fans by humiliating Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 2011.