“I do think the genius — and I’m using the word genius — of Donald Trump is to have felt the crisis,” he said.

Araud noted that Republicans are now “Trumpified.”

“You had a Republican Party that was really free trade, interventionist in foreign policy, connected to budgetary restraint,” he said. “And suddenly you have a Republican Party that is shifting to protectionism, nationalism, defense of the identity. Exactly the same thing is happening to conservative parties across the Western democracies. Social democracy is in a coma in Europe, so I do think the elections in 2020 will be totally fascinating in America because the Democratic Party will be obliged to answer the question, ‘What does it mean to be on the left in America?’”

Like Democrats in 2016, Emmanuel Macron underestimated the resentment bubbling under the surface, he said: “He has been largely elected by the included against the excluded. And he has not been able to widen his appeal beyond basically the people who feel comfortable in a global world.”