You could tell the European political establishment had taken a shine to 39-year-old French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron by the number of articles in which he was referred to as both a “centrist” and an “outsider.” Angelique Chrisafis, of Britain’s Guardian, even called him a “maverick centrist outsider.” Macron was a centrist to the extent he claimed to follow a politics that is “neither right nor left.” He was an “outsider” to the extent that he had never been elected to political office.

But of course you can’t be both. Macron, a former investment banker, was the economics minister of the outgoing socialist government and was for a time the most powerful cabinet member in it. As such he is not just an insider. He is the establishment’s last hope for its own rescue. For years the French public has grown less inclined to believe its political leaders. The two main parties have not delivered on their promises. The conservative Gaullists long ago surrendered their selling point (national pride) to bring France into the multinational European Union. The Socialists surrendered theirs (jobs and benefits) to bring France into the global economy. And when the votes were counted in the first round of France’s presidential election on April 23, neither of the parties that have dominated French political life since the 1950s was there. Macron and his En Marche! (“onward,” or “on the march”) movement topped the polling at 24 percent. Marine Le Pen, heir to a party of nationalism and demagoguery founded by her father, was just behind him at 21.