BY OWEN MATTHEWS
IT WAS THE day the world didn’t end, the day that the tide of populism that gave the world Brexit and Donald Trump turned, the moment when French voters chose pragmatism over protest. That, at least, was the judgment of Europe’s establishment at the victory of centrist Emmanuel Macron in the May 7 French presidential election.
It’s not hard to see why the defeat of the Euroskeptic, anti-immigration Marine Le Pen was so vital to the West’s future. A victory for Le Pen’s far-right National Front party would likely have heralded the disintegration of the European Union and the end of the continent’s grand experiment with open borders. And it would have caused a deep crisis in a world order based on free trade, mass migration and globalization— precisely the forces that Le Pen’s insurgent campaign blamed for France’s ills.