FRANCE

Emmanuel Macron wins the election to become French president.

The revelation of a last-minute attempt by computer hackers to influence the outcome of the French presidential election is another sane reminder of the forces at work in undermining democracy. In the end, however, it had little effect, as Emmanuel Macron secured his expected victory, at 39, to become the youngest French head of state of modern times. This is an extraordinary achievement for the President-Elect for he has been a candidate without a party.

Some will likely argue that the margin of triumph over Marine Le Pen was emphatic enough. Others might suggest that with around one third of voters still prepared to vote for the Front National (FN), this too was none the less a good result for a right-wing populist, anti-EU party.

The results suggest that if Mr Macron disappoints during his five-year tenure in office – as François Hollande so evidently did before him – then Ms Le Pen will be well positioned in 2022 to take power.

Given that this was an election in which neither candidate represented one of the mainstream Left- or Right- wing parties, Mr Macron has assumed an enormous level of responsibility on his shoulders.

The French electorate have clearly become weary of political leaders who promise much but deliver little. One prominent sign of their dissatisfaction with the political system as a whole was the lower than usual voter turnout, with participation possibly lower than at any time for 40 years when final figures are collated.

Whilst there is a sense that the French voter may have been left to feel short-changed, their rejection of the traditional parties has not exactly enamoured them of the populist fringe movement represented by Ms Le Pen. Or, indeed, of the alleged centrist appeal of Mr Macron, given his connections to former president Hollande.

Primarily, it is incumbent on Mr Macron to restore his country’s faith in the Fifth Republic over the next five years. This task will be made more difficult by the fact that his movement, En Marche!, has no parliamentary representation, something that will have to be swiftly rectified when elections take place to the assembly next month.

With little in the way of an activist base, Mr Macron faces a political paradox – one in which he may end up with the trappings of political office but none of the power that derives from a strong presence in the legislature. Moreover, and more worrying still, is that information in the hacked data might yet mire him in political scandal.

The contents of the hacked data were not disclosed because of the strict rules operating in France during the latter stages of the election campaign. But the new French president-elect must be hoping that there is nothing embarrassing, or worse, to be revealed.

Yet, the lesson of Ms Le Pen’s showing in the polls needs to be readily acknowledged by Europe’s elites, who have openly welcomed Mr Macron as a saviour. But they need to understand that this does not represent the definitive victory of the European project over its detractors. Far from it. It is a desperate throw of the dice for the EU to have relevance and meaning.