The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

33 The election of Emmanuel Macron in 2017 gave many observers the feeling that, after the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump to the White House, Paris had brought the epi- demic of populism that appeared to be spread- ing through Western democracies to an abrupt halt. Eighteen months later, the general feeling is that France is once again to some degree af- flicted by the disease, or at least that the En Marche! medicine has certainly not managed to ward it off. This means the May 2019 European elections will be high-risk event for those in power in France. Macron the European If there is one political leader who has invested a great deal in the European vision it is undoubt- edly Emmanuel Macron. In 2017, during the presidential campaign that brought him to pow- er, he was the only clearly pro-European candi- date in the race. Most of the others were open- ly Eurosceptic (Marine Le Pen’s Front National went as far as to demand that France leave the single currency), or from political parties deeply divided on European issues. This was particu- larly true for the socialists, who have bitter memories of the failed European constitution referendum in 2005, but also the right-wing conservatives, as was shown in the primaries held by the centre and right-wing parties in late 2016. In this context Emmanuel Macron managed to stand out rather surprisingly: he had people on their feet at meetings every time he men- tioned his commitment to Europe and ambi- tions for the EU. His political party, En Marche! (now La République en Marche ), attracted many activists from both the left and right, character- ised by their Euro-optimism. Terra Nova polled about 8,000 members of the President’s party and revealed this in spectacular fashion. When asked about their main concerns, the vast ma- jority of them placed Europe just behind but almost level with unemployment. 1 They consid- er the destinies of France and Europe to be 1  Cautrès, B., Lazar, M., Pech, T., Vitiello, T.: La République en Marche : anatomie d’un mouvement , Terra Nova, 2018. Available online: http://tnova.fr/rapports/la-republique-en- marche-anatomie-d-un-mouvement Emmanuel Macron: the end of an exception Thierry Pech