Like in the first round of the French Presidential Election, Emmanuel Macron did better than expected. But nobody had predicted 66 per cent, with Marine Le Pen relegated to 34 per cent. He had been stable at around 60 per cent, even slipping down to 59 per cent earlier in the week, and the last polls had him on 63 per cent. The turning point was Wednesday night’s debate, where Macron, much as he had done with employees at the Whirlpool factory a few days before, courageously faced the sneering attacks of Le Pen. With her wild rants and obvious lack of understanding of the important dossiers of French politics, Le Pen managed to undo in a couple of hours all her efforts at “normalising’ the party” she had inherited from her father since 2002.
As the most pro-European of the candidates, this spells bad news for the Brexit negotiations. Although as a liberal Macron is sympathetic to the UK and London, Brexit wasn’t one of his main campaign themes, and as the economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, tipped to be his EU adviser, warned, Macron will be “tough” on Brexit. He won’t seek to “punish” Britain, but as a committed European his goal will be to revive the Franco-German partnership. This will only reinforce the hard front Theresa May will face.
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