Why is Europe so fed up?

There are those, like Charles Grant, the director of the pro-EU Centre for European Reform, who look at the Europe Union today and find that – despite all its undoubted problems - the most remarkable thing is that “everywhere, it appears that the centre appears to be holding”.

Despite all the fears stirred by the anti-austerity protesters and nationalist up-start parties like AfD, when it comes to the crunch, he argues, the moderate majority still holds sway. So when Ms Le Pen threatened to win real power after the first round of last December’s regional elections, the centre-ground parties closed ranks to defeat her - just as they had done in 2002 when her father, Jean-Marie, reached the second round of the presidential election.