ALSO ‘FAR RIGHT,’ THE ULTIMATE UNDEFINED TERM OF ABUSE.

issues that have animated the movements are not going anywhere.”

Indeed. 2017 is the first election since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958 that the final Presidential vote does not involve either main party in their various guises, currently Socialist and Republican.

The official Socialist came 5th, with a feeble 6.4 per cent of the vote, under 1/3 of the 19.6 per cent tally of “revolutionary Leftist” Jean-Luc Mélenchon of “La France insoumise." Mélenchon, endorsed by the French Communist Party, is genuinely “far left.” And like Le Pen he is fiercely protectionist, anti-EU and wants to leave NATO.

So nearly 3/4 of the firstround short, he’s the very emblem of an elite that can line its own pockets and pat its own back while smothering opportunity with red tape and debate with snobbery.

Here’s just one issue that surely feeds festering discontent. The youth unemployment rate in France is 23.6 per cent and it’s an improvement over last year. To advocate neo-liberalism under the wise guidance of Brussels, as Macron does, ensures that it will not improve. So what happens next time?

The real problem in France is not that Marine Le Pen might become its next president. It’s that she might lose to someone who insists everything will be hunkydory provided technocrats