Macron's gamble may affect more than just the Olympics

When the G7 leaders lined up with their EU counterparts for a group photo in Puglia, it was hard not to start counting them down, if not out.

- MARY DEJEVSKY

There was the UK’s Rishi Sunak, all present and correct this time (unlike at Omaha Beach), but likely to be out of office in three weeks’ time. Joe Biden may be gone in a matter of months, even if he withstands the rigours of the US election campaign. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, has a reasonable but not unimpeachable chance of keeping her job for another term following last week’s EU parliamentary elections.

And then there’s France’s Emmanuel Macron, ostensibly safe in the Elysee Palace for another three years – except that, all of a sudden, as of last Sunday, and by an act entirely of his own volition, maybe not. For while an opposition victory in legislative elections would not dislodge him from the presidency constitutionally – cohabitation between presidents and legislatures of different persuasions having honourable precedents in France, as in the United States – it is not impossible that this at-once haughty and petulant president might stamp his foot and call it a day.

Then again, he may not have to. It is early days since Macron’s breathtaking electoral gamble, but it could be paying off. The initial shock across France at the magnitude of the risk their president seemed to be taking – almost inviting the prospect of a government headed by the right-wing leader, Marine Le Pen – has been replaced by equal astonishment and, in some quarters, delight at the disarray now roiling the opposition. As one social media comment put it, why waste money on Netflix when French politics is this entertaining?