Emmanuel Macron, centre, candidate for the 2017 French presidential election, during a campaign visit in Sarcelles, near Paris, on April 27, 2017.Martin Bureau/Reuters
The knives are out for French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. Faster than you can say Frexit, the conservative Anglo-Saxon media are switching their coverage of the presidential election from disaster movie (France is about to elect a fascist president) to vicious satire (another champagne socialist heads for the Elysee Palace).
There is something about Emmanuel Macron that brings out the worst in the English language media. In the febrile political mood of the moment, hints of victory for the leader of a brand new moderate political party in France ought to be good news for the European Union and, therefore, good for the world. Unfortunately, for Mr. Macron, the schadenfreude that has gripped the politics of the right from Washington to Budapest wants only disaster.
Even without her plans to quit the euro, victory for Marine Le Pen, the heiress of the National Front, a party whose long history is steeped in fascism and antisemitism, would be instant death for the EU. Yet within hours of learning that Mr. Macron had led the vote in the first round (he will face Ms. Le Pen in the run-off on May 7) the ridicule began: rich, centre-left and worst of all, a Europhile, was the judgment of The Sun, Britain's popular tabloid, while its rival the Daily Mail jeered at the champagne quaffing by activists from En Marche, the new party founded by Mr. Macron. Even the more serious press poured cold water: The Times reckoned that it was still uncertain that liberals would win the argument in France or even in the rest of Europe.
There is a point at which cynicism tips into malfeasance. You have to wonder what the EU's critics hope for: a massive sovereign bond default when France quits the euro? Russian incursions into the Baltic states as President Le Pen walks out of the European Council chamber?
The good news is that Ms. Le Pen is very unlikely to win (the French pollsters seem to make better predictions than their American or British rivals). Even better, Mr. Macron could be the politician who begins the process of reform, first of the French economy and then, the European institutions.
His critics say he is an unknown quantity but he has set out his agenda clearly. Reforms that were stymied by president François Hollande when Mr. Macron was economy minister would go ahead: labour market liberalization, deficit reduction and an end to the meddling government regulation that strangles competition and enterprise.
He won't find it easy: The left and National Front deputies in the French legislature, both committed to defending the crumbling fortress of the French Republic will oppose him. However, he will have a mandate from voters and the support of right-wing deputies who are keen to end the hegemony of the French state.
Mr. Macron's harsh French medicine will go down well in Berlin and that will be good for Europe. The weakness of France and the imminent departure of Britain has created a political logjam in Brussels hindering reform of the institutions, including the euro.
Mr. Macron's prescription is a two-speed Europe with deeper integration of the core EU states, notably France and Germany, while allowing weaker economies more flexibility. He wants Germany to spend more, invest more and reflate the eurozone with the demand of one of the world's most powerful economies. He wants a eurozone budget, a combined fiscal policy and a finance minister under the supervision of the EU parliament, ideas that are anathema to conservatives in Germany and untenable as long as the French economy remains weak. Orthodox German opinion would oppose a transfer economy that implied Germany underwriting the weaker Mediterranean states on its own.
However, a strengthened France with greater economic clout would change the political equation. It would restore the economic balance of the EU and allow Berlin to shed the political burden it has assumed over the past decade. Germany has become the EU's bully, the bad guy with all the money, a role it has found deeply uncomfortable in tough negotiations over the rescue of Greece. A stronger France under President Macron would share the burden and make a more integrated eurozone possible.
For anti-globalists, conservative nationalists, Trumpists, Brexiteers and the Kremlin, this is the nightmare scenario: a successful European Union. The British, as ever, are deeply ambivalent about France, jealous whenever it succeeds while sneering but privately anxious whenever it stumbles. The disaster of a Le Pen victory is now overshadowed by British anxiety that a triumphant Emmanuel Macron, leading a more confident France will become an obstacle to Theresa May as the British Prime Minister seeks to rescue Brexit with a sweetheart trade deal.
There is an arrogant belief current among the anti-globalist fraternity that liberal internationalism is over. They want to believe that the world is a zero-sum game, not just in trade but in politics, too. The EU was created to end that sort of thinking and a Macron presidency would be the best signal that defeatist populism had peaked.
Carl Mortished is a Canadian financial journalist based in London.
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Carl Mortished