This is election year in Europe. It started with the election in midMarch in the Netherlands, followed by two rounds of the French presidential elections that ended last Sunday. Finally there is the impending election in September that will elect the German Chancellor for the next four years. Then suddenly the British Prime Minister dissolved Parliament and announced new election on 8 June of this year. All these elections are taking place under the shadow of Brexit and with the ultranationalist antiMuslim and anti-immigration populist movements gaining increasing support among the ordinary citizens in Europe who are confused with high unemployment, steady erosion of social benefits, and are feeling lost under fierce globalisation.

The election in the Netherlands is usually a local affair, with no impact outside its borders. This time, however, it was different. The reason was the dramatic rise in the popularity of the party PVV of Geert Wilders, a xenophobic fanatical Muslim hater who campaigned against letting Muslim refugees from Syria and other countries into his country. For more than a year, PVV was coming up on top in all opinion polls in percentage terms. With the Netherlands having proportional representation, a coalition government is a must to form any government there. But if PVV did win the largest percentage of votes, the Queen would have no choice but to ask him first to form the new government in the Netherlands. This would be psychologically a big boost to other like-minded parties all over Europe, although Geert Wilders would not become the Prime Minister as no other major party would join PVV in a coalition government there. After considerable tension, the right liberal party VVD managed to get the largest percentage of votes, with PVV following close behind. This gave a considerable boost to the liberal democrats in Europe.

The German election is turning out to be the standard contest between the centre-right Christian Democrats and the centre-left Socialists, with the neo-fascist xenophobic AfD (Alternative for Germany) in total disarray. The election in the United Kingdom is primarily a trick of Theresa May to get a massive mandate to keep the extreme Eurosceptics in her party in check and to be assured of support of her countrymen during her difficult Brexit negotiations with the other 27 members of the European Union. Last year Europe was shocked by the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the United States. The forthcoming election in Britain caused barely a ripple in Europe. It is the uncertainty of the Brexit negotiations that is the talking point there.

This put all spotlight on the French election and the new President there. France has a presidential form of government and two rounds of elections to elect the President. In the first round leaders of all political parties, even outsiders, can compete for popular votes. Only the winner and the runner-up then fight it out in the second round after two weeks. This is based on the Constitution of the Fifth Republic that was established by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. From the start the second round saw the contest between the leaders of the centre-right coalition, now christened the Republicans, and the centre-left Socialists, with one exception. That happened in 2002 when the leader of the populist ultra nationalist party National Front (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, surprisingly came second in the first round with the lacklustre socialist Lionel Jospin coming in third. After the initial shock, all leftist mainstream political parties supported the centre-right candidate, Jacques Chirac, resulting in his landslide victory. This year the traditional French politics was put upside down by the superimposition of numerous economic and political developments.

Government has considerable influence over business in France, an anachronism in a capitalist country. The neo-liberal wave that has swept away all traditional resistance of the workers’ unions elsewhere has been tamed in France. In the era of globalisation this has hurt the French economy in no small measure. By contrast, to make the integration of East Germany into the capitalist open competitive economy of West Germany possible, the united country had to take tough measures to reduce many social welfare measures and reinvigorate the economy with the latest technologies causing huge disruption in the labour market. In the global economy, Germany boomed while France remained stagnant. This was psychologically devastating for the French. The massive unemployment, exacerbated by the credit crunch and the resulting great recession since 2008, made the French distrustful of all establishment politicians, both on the centre-right and the centre-left. Then came the terrorist attacks of unimaginable brutality that the French government was unable to tackle in a credible manner.

All ingredients were in place for the spectacular rise of the National Front, under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the party founder JeanMarie Le Pen. She is more astute and less crude than her father and has now considerable appeal among the petty bourgeoisie and the unemployed. She wants to give France back to the French, very similar to the rhetoric of Donald Trump. She wants to get out of Euro and order a British type referendum on French membership of the European Union (EU). She is also against globalisation and for protection of the French industry and ‘way of life’. She was the frontrunner in opinion polls for a long time in the first round of election. Finally, she came just behind Emmanuel Macron in the actual election held on 23 April. Macron won 24.01 per cent of the popular votes as against 21.30 per cent of Le Pen.

The surprise was that the centre-right candidate Francois Fillon came in third with 20.01 per cent of popular votes, while the Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon was hammered with only 6.36 per cent of votes.

This is the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that both major political parties failed to make it to the second round. Another surprise was the performance of the far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, once a veteran Socialist, who garnered 19.58 per cent of votes. He does not even have a party behind him, but a movement, La France Insoumise (FI) that he formed after he left the Socialist party. He is the left counterpart of Marina Le Pen. It shows how divided and confused the French are at present.

But then who is Emmanuel Macron? He had elite French education and was a Rothschild banker. He had no political experience when he was suddenly brought in by the current President Francois Hollande as the Economics Minister in his Cabinet in order to make economic and labour reforms like Germany. The French Parliament threw away all these reform proposals and Macron resigned from the Cabinet to start another movement ~ En March. He has no political party behind him, and the support of all left/liberals for him in the second round was not assured. Still he finally won, defeating Le Pen by 66 per cent against 34 per cent of votes. Macron campaigned as a centrist candidate, neither right, nor left, but a pragmatic technician out to solve France’s problems. His manifesto was somewhat vague and sometimes contradictory. He is strongly pro-European and a convinced internationalist. With Macron’s election, the French have saved Europe from the brink. He is expected to strengthen the Franco-German axis that is essential to bring the European Community back on track.

The French President cannot select his Cabinet at will, as in the United States. He can choose the Prime Minister, but he/she must be a member of Parliament. The Prime Minister then chooses the Cabinet. The parliamentary election is scheduled to be held in June. With no party behind him yet, it is anybody’s guess how Macron followers would fare in the forthcoming parliamentary election. He may have to choose a Prime Minister from another party, and that could spell trouble in getting his programmes implemented. But that is speculative at present. Now a 39-year-old handsome young man, with his 63-year-old wife, has become the youngest President in French history. His victory is going to reinvigorate the EU at the right moment with the Brexit negotiations starting soon. Nothing could be more propitious than that for Europe at present.

The writer is former dean and emeritus professor of applied mathematics, University of Twente, The Netherlands.