France has turned against Macron. Will Europe set the stage for President Le Pen? | Paul Taylor

The president is trailing the hard right - and forthcoming European elections could leave him a political lame duck

In the latest of his visionary speeches on the future of Europe, Emmanuel Macron called for the EU to transform itself into a military power or face death". Yet his own presidency of France may be about to enter a long twilight zone unless he can reverse his party's deepening slump in June's European parliament election.

Macron's unpopularity is the main reason why his centrist pro-European Renaissance party is trailing a distant second in opinion polls behind Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally (RN). Le Pen's list is led by Jordan Bardella, 29, the rising star in the populist anti-immigration party. Renaissance, whose list is headed by little-known MEP Valerie Hayer, is down to 17.5% in the latest survey while the RN is on 31%. The two parties were neck-and-neck in the last European election, five years ago .

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre