The ardently Europhile French president was narrowly beaten by Marine Le Pen’s virulently anti-EU National Rally in the French vote but stands to benefit from a fragmentation in support for the older centrist parties in the European Parliament.
Ever since the first European elections in 1979, the centre-right European People’s Party and centre-left Socialists and Democrats have dominated EU politics. They operated, formally and informally, a grand coalition, sewing up the EU’s top jobs and gaming the approval of Brussels’…
