Macron is heading for re-election and a win over the far right – but he can mostly thank others for that

In a few weeks France will be opting for a relatively quiet life with a leader they know but don’t especially rate, says Sean O’Grady

Emmanuel Macron attends a meeting on the Ukraine crisis in Versailles last week (Sarah Meyssonnier/Pool/AP)

The French, it’s said, like to think themselves exceptional in all sorts of ways, and with good reason. In politics, somehow the Republic has managed to avoid the worst effects of the polarisation that has overwhelmed so much of the rest of the democratic west.

Remarkably, Emmanuel Macron, a centrist president not especially loved or even popular, looks set to win his second term at the elections next month. He is somehow – in electoral terms – transcending the partisan bitterness that has disfigured politics in Britain and America, and has avoided the fractured parliamentary stalemates that stymie governments in Germany and Italy.

If Macron does secure his tenure in the Elysee Palace at the final second round of the presidential election on 24 April, he will be in power until 2027. He will be the first president of the Fifth Republic to win a second term since Jacques Chirac in 2002. At that point he will be 49 years old; a third term or even longer will be at least be a plausible possibility. The “Age of Macron” beckons.