France’s leftwing coalition had a serious chance to change the country. It blew it

French voters are upset with Macron – and rightly so – for naming the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as prime minister. Barnier’s political family, Les Républicains, has only 47 seats (of 577) in the national assembly, and he will only survive no-confidence votes at the discretion of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) – the party that leftwing and centrist voters voted strategically to block. The disillusionment alone is a vast danger in a time when voters everywhere are losing faith in their democracies. Macron’s ego, his inability to accept having been wrong and to learn from it, ultimately swallowed his presidency.