PARIS — Every corner of this city has earned a place in history, but the Place de la Contrescarpe seems an unlikely venue to mark the withering stature of President Emmanuel Macron as a French, European and international statesman.

It’s even possible that Place de la Contrescarpe will demand a footnote as the place where Macron lost his voice as the champion of international co-operation against the forces of crude patriotism.

Last week, in the warmth of late summer sunshine, the little square in the Latin Quarter, a stiff uphill walk from the Seine River, was a cliché for a Parisian local meeting place.

Along three sides are street cafés, whose patronage ebbs and flows with the sun. On the north side are a boulangerie, a small general store, a Greek restaurant, a British-style pub and a shuttered and mouldering fast food joint called O’Tacos. The attempt at Irish-Mexican fusion cuisine seems to have been ahead of its time.

Life in Place de la Contrescarpe marks the Parisian day. There’s the early rush for baguettes at the boulangerie, a flurry of customers for the $12 petit déjeuner at the cafés, and a scuttle of children and students heading for the schools and colleges in the streets leading from the square.

The cafés have steady customers for mid-morning coffee, leisurely lunches and a late-afternoon apéritif. As the sun sinks behind the roof of the bakery, schoolchildren chatter into the small park in the centre of the square, where their parents are waiting, gossiping by the fountain in the shade of a small circle of trees.

To pass the time, the more assertive children try to kick the pigeons that live in the little park and have grown plump on the crumbs of after-school snacks. But the birds are old experts at this game, and explode into the trees before the little boots can land.

It’s all so normal, but on May 1 this year, something happened in Place de la Contrescarpe that continues to haunt French politics and Macron.

There was a riot and heavy fighting in the square when police confronted and fired volleys of tear gas at May Day marchers protesting Macron’s policies to curb unions, give tax cuts to the wealthy, and rein in France’s generous pension schemes, which he considers unsustainable.

There’s nothing particularly strange in that. It is a feature of French political culture that outrage at governments is played out on the streets.

What caught public attention about the Contrescarpe conflict was a cellphone video of the clash published by Le Monde newspaper on July 18. The video focused on one man who wore a police helmet and arm band, but did not otherwise appear to be a police officer. And he was attacking protesters with a brutality well beyond the rules of the no-nonsense French police.

The man was identified as Alexandre Benalla, 26, who was Macron’s occasional bodyguard, as well as his skiing and cycling companion.

Benalla was promptly fired from his job in the Élysée Palace. And Macron took the extraordinary step, given the French acceptance of divisions between private and public life, of saying in a statement to MPs that Benalla was not his lover.

What seems to concern the French public, however, is Macron’s lack of judgment in employing and apparently enjoying the company of such an erratic person.

Benalla used his proximity to the president as a ticket to feed personal passions. He was at the Contrescarpe riot ostensibly to “observe” police procedure, and was overcome by a desire to get involved in the violence. The suspicion is that was always his intention.

On July 16, Benalla got himself at the front of the bus carrying France’s victorious World Cup soccer team on its parade down the Champs-Élysées. And this week, selfies were published of Benalla holding his pistol to the head of a waitress during a stop in last year’s election campaign.

It appears that Benalla had a licence to carry the gun, but only in the headquarters of Macron’s political party. Benalla continued to be armed while working in the Élysée presidential offices, even though he is not a member of Macron’s police bodyguard.

Macron, 40, won election to the presidency in March 2017, portraying himself as an outsider who would drag stultified French politics, administration and society by the scruff of the neck into the modern world.

That point was underlined by Macron’s arrival on the national scene without the backing of any of the traditional parties. Instead, he formed his own, La République En Marche, often translated simply as “Forward,” or “On the Move.” Macron and his party attracted some die-hards, but also a lot of young newcomers to politics.

It was an appealing prospect for a majority of voters struggling with the fallout from unmanaged immigration, the rise of the ultra-right-wing National Front, and an uncertain future for France in the European Union after Brexit and the departure of the United Kingdom next March.

And Macron himself was an attractive and eloquent character in a society where it is still a compliment to be regarded as an intellectual.

He swept into power with over 66 per cent of the vote, and En Marche won 308 of the 577 seats in the legislature.

It’s been downhill since.

The latest polls show only 28 per cent of voters are satisfied with Macron’s performance. That is lower at this point in his mandate than predecessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Three of Macron’s ministers have quit in apparent revulsion at the way things are going.

L’Affaire Benalla has crystallized misgivings about Macron that swiftly emerged after last year’s election.

Although Macron portrayed himself as a political outsider, he’s a product of the elite École nationale d’administration, which produces France’s governing class, and has enjoyed a lucrative career as a banker.

France remains one of the most class-ridden countries in Europe — even more so than Britain. Macron has a habit, when meeting voters, of reminding them he comes out of the top drawer.

Macron lacks the common touch and assumes regal airs. He has taken to giving his annual address to the French Parliament at the Palace of Versailles, the creation and residence of the “Sun King,” Louis XIV. Previous French presidents have used this setting only on exceptional occasions.

Macron’s withering political stature has former president Sarkozy thinking about a political comeback, but it also has profound implications for the European Union, and perhaps more widely.

Although the forces of nationalism, and opposition to immigration and EU integration, have not achieved victory in recent elections, these forces are well embedded and continue to grow.

Nationalist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s coalition leader Matteo Salvini have directly attacked Macron over his pro-immigration policies. Other fortress-nation governments are in power in Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. Political movements opposed to immigration are well established in Holland, Sweden and elsewhere.

With the EU’s de facto leader for the past decade, Germany’s Angela Merkel, on her way to retirement, and Britain quitting the union next March in a melee of chaotic political infighting, Macron has been the most prominent advocate for European solidarity, open borders and international co-operation.

But as Macron loses political authority, so does his power to champion the vision of internationalism against the forces of nationalism. His defence of globalism in a speech at the United Nations last week in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s praise for crude nationalism had the thud of a hollow drum.

What the future holds will likely become evident next May when there will be elections for the European Parliament. That, not Brexit, is the immediate challenge for Europe.

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