Old Europe suddenly seems new again
It looks more stable, more hopeful and more consensual whereas something is rotten in the Anglo-Saxon world
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THE contrast could not be more stark. Theresa May, the British prime minister, presides over a hung Parliament and a divided country. Donald Trump, the American president, rules alongside a Congress almost too paralysed to legislate. In both countries, far-left and far-right movements and ideas have more adherents than ever; political debate is angry, hate-filled - and violent. Gunmen have now shot at US lawmakers on the left and right; in Britain last year, an MP was murdered.
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, the new French president, is about to achieve something extraordinary: his brand-new centrist party, Republic on the Move, is on track to win a sweeping, unprecedented majority in the French Parliament. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, will probably be re-elected for a third term in September by voters who still favour centrist parties in high numbers. Even in Italy, where talk of a populist surge has lately grown louder, voters just rejected that party in large numbers in local elections.
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