The French election should be a warning for Boris

In just over a week’s time, Emmanuel Macron will most likely win a second term. He has the opponent he wants in Marine Le Pen, whom he believes will be too unpalatable for the French people. He hopes voters will fear that, unlike in 2017, she has a reasonable chance of victory – polls show just a few percentage points between the two candidates – and be persuaded to vote for him instead. If Macron’s strategy succeeds and he returns to power, it may seem as if nothing has changed in French, and indeed European, politics.

But even if Macron sees off a populist challenger for the second time, a strong showing by Le Pen threatens to destabilise his administration. He may not keep his majority in the parliamentary elections. The French presidential race fits a growing trend across Europe. On Monday the far-right Vox party entered government in the Castile and León region of Spain as coalition partner of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco. In many European countries, the establishment parties have struggled to respond to new concerns about immigration and globalisation. Voters have noticed.

It was not long ago that French politics was dominated by traditionally centre-left and centre-right parties: socialists and republicans. The two parties last slugged it out in 2007 and 2012, with the UMP’s Nicolas Sarkozy winning the former, and the Socialists’ François Hollande triumphing in the latter. In last week’s first round of voting, these two parties could between them muster only a derisory 6.5 per cent of the vote. They are unable to find the policies or the language to command mass support.

Over the past few decades, the division in western politics had tended to be between centre-right parties which combine economic liberalism with social conservativism, and centre-left parties which did the opposite.