Romantics can find in all this a glimmer of a new politics, one more responsive to popular opinion. It is sometimes summed up as the “global village of the internet”, the democracy of the unmoderated platform. In many ways Brexit was its most glaring manifestation, a cry of protest against Europe’s most centralist governing elite. No other EU state has since dared hold such a referendum and even Le Pen has backed off one. As with Trump in the US, give voters an opportunity to speak naked truth to power and they may use it.

It is six years since the World Values Survey recorded a plummeting faith in democracy. Fewer than half of under-50s “believed it was essential to live in a country governed democratically”. In Germany, the US and Japan, between 20% and 40% would opt for a “strong leader who does not have to bother with parliaments and elections”. Conventional politics must confront these truths or die. Group identity must be somehow respected or worldwide immigration will become a torment. Federalism must be installed or separatism will destabilise states everywhere. Parliaments and parties must reform their processes or become irrelevant.

The odds are still on France saving itself in two weeks’ time, but its lessons are clear for all to see.