Liberalism or populism? As both teams up the stakes ahead of next year’s European elections, France is seeing a rerun of its 2017 presidential run-off, in which French president Emmanuel Macron faced far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen. The outcome, this time, may be very different.

In May 2017, Macron won comfortably with 66% of the vote, compared to Le Pen’s 34%. He was France’s shiny new toy: his ratings were sky high, a portion of the left had rallied to his cause after being disillusioned with president Hollande and the Socialists’ poor showing in the first round, and he had beaten Le Pen in a televised debate that left her short of presidential credibility.

But 2018 has been long and fraught for Macron, whose ratings are in free fall. His liberal policies have yet to bring the promised economic renewal and the Benalla scandal has tainted his presidency. Le Pen renamed her far-right party earlier this year. Historically called Front National, it is now National Rally (RN), in a bid to erase memories of her father’s leadership and rebrand as the nationalist alternative to Macron’s globalism. The goal was to go “from opposition and into government” – but until now, the opposition was timid, when it was heard at all. With only eight MPs in the Assemblée Nationale against 308 in Macron’s party La République En Marche (LREM), the nationalist party couldn’t even form its own parliamentary group (the minimum is 15 MPs) and has limited influence in a Macron-controlled parliament. That could change.

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Just last May, LREM had a clear lead in the polls for the 2019 European elections with 24%, far ahead of Le Pen’s National Rally’s 19.5%. The year has proven so difficult for Macron and LREM that polls now show both parties evening out at around 20%.

Just like Ukip, Le Pen’s party always does better in European elections – in 2014, it was the clear winner in France, with 25% of the vote. “Marine Le Pen’s party is largely ahead of the UMP (then the name for the Conservative party, the Républicains) and the Socialists,” Le Monde wrote at the time. Since then, Macron has exploded the old party system. But can LREM reproduce its 2017 miracle? The RN has already successfully run European campaigns; LREM will be running its first one ever.

At first world war commemorations, Macron has condemned “the absurdity of warlike nationalism” while admitting it’s having a comeback in a Europe “more fragmented than ever”, thanks to “parties playing up fears everywhere”. This moment, he has said, resembles the interwar years.

With his European partner Angela Merkel’s announcement that she is leaving office soon, Macron finds himself the face of Europe’s liberals, with one of the EU’s biggest storms approaching. Fighting nationalism doesn’t just mean defeating Le Pen anymore. When Viktor Orbán, while visiting Matteo Salvini in Italy in August, called Macron “the leader of the pro-migrants”, Macron threw himself into the arm-wrestling match, replying: “If they see me as their main opponent, they are right.”

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But while the likes of Orbán, Salvini and Le Pen have already teamed up to offer well-rehearsed anti-immigration speeches, Macron’s alliances are not yet secured and his discourse is somewhat confusing. In an attempt to win over some of the populist voters, he has recently criticised the “ultra-liberal Europe” and wished for “a Europe that better protects workers and isn’t open to all winds” – words that would sound more normal coming from Le Pen.

“The choice in the 2019 European election will be between Macron’s EU, working towards federalism and mass immigration, and a Europe of free nations, of identities and protections, the one we represent,” Marine Le Pen has said.

Macron positioned himself as Europe’s next leader from the moment of his presidential victory, when he walked solemnly on to the stage to the sound of the European Ode to Joy. Now Macron must hope that he can live up to the claim.

• Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Britain. She writes for the New Statesman