Macron and the ‘French Trump’ trap Gaullism’s heirs in a political vice

With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Republicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidate

Six months before a presidential election and France's mainstream right finds itself squeezed - between the hammer and the anvil as they say here - without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.

On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam - the three i's - and ban non-French" names such as Mohamed.