Whisper it soft, but the sense of crisis that consumed France as little as two months ago looks to have dissipated – at least until the next crisis erupts.
The country is in a holding pattern as Emmanuel Macron adjusts his posture and focuses on the Big Jobs scrabble in Brussels. The general view, even among his opponents, is that he is drifting back, slowly but remorselessly, from the depths to which he sank during the dark days of the gilets-jaunes protests. It had been forecast that he would be hard-hit by last month’s European elections, but in the event his En Marche party, though narrowly beaten by Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, not only ended up with the same number of seats as his arch-rival, but comfortably saw off the challenge of the centre-left Socialists and centre-right Conservatives, both of whom performed dismally.
