Europe faces a new age of shrunken French influence

The shape of France’s future relationship with the union will depend on the second round of voting in legislative elections on July 7th. The biggest fear in Brussels and just about every EU capital bar Budapest is that the National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen will win a majority after coming top in the first round. Its flagship policy until 2017 was to leave the EU altogether. Until even more recently it wanted to pull out of NATO’s integrated military command structure, which de Gaulle huffed out of shortly after the empty-chair spat. (Nicolas Sarkozy, another imperious French president—attentive readers may be spotting a trend here—rejoined in 2009). If the RN is the biggest party but falls short of a majority, as seems likely, it may still be able to cobble together a “national conservative” coalition oozing Euroscepticism.