Emmanuel Macron is now Europe’s standard-bearer

IN POLITICS, ASEUEU on the catwalk, fashions come and go. In Europe in the 1980s it was Britain that dazzled with its daring ideas, as Margaret Thatcher’s state-shrinking, red-tape-slashing policies inspired numerous imitators and even more furious protest songs. In the noughties came Germany’s turn. Sensible economic reforms helped firms there seize the new opportunities of globalisation, the better to sell unstructured Hugo Boss suits to upwardly mobile Russians and Chinese. Ideologically the 2020s belong to France. Its big —a scepticism of free markets, an acceptance of the state’s role in shaping everything from farming to culture, haughty declarations of independence from America—are vintage stuff. But like a Louis Vuitton clutch re-released to adoring fashionistas, this line of thinking is once again back in vogue.Emmanuel Macron, France’s youthful and newly re-elected president, is the ’s man of the moment. He triumphed in part by thumping rivals intent on derailing the European project. Marching to his victory rally on April 24th to the tune of the European anthem was a clear signal that Mr Macron sees his realm as extending beyond France. And well he might. For who else could serve as a standard-bearer for the today? Britain has left. Olaf Scholz, the newish chancellor in Berlin, is mired in an overhaul of German foreign policy (it turns out that trading suits and cars for Russian gas had geopolitical consequences). Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, is respected but on his way out by next spring. Mr Macron, by contrast, will now be around for five more years.