What the French vote says about European politics

When the first round of the French elections was completed, one part of the story was that the centrist, Emmanuel Macron, who has no political party presence to speak of, made it into the run-off. Crucially, he is not a populist, nor is he on the right-wing of French politics, which seemed to indicate France was bucking the trend in western societies that had led to Brexit in the UK, a Trump presidency in the US and the rise of the far-right across Europe. But that is only part of the story. The second part of the narrative is that the next runner-up was Marine Le Pen, a representative of the French far-right. What does that say about French politics and, more widely, Europe itself?

The opening of the article. The full text is at The National.