The French establishment fear “Europe could die” following the EU Parliament elections next year, with President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! polling poorly and conservative-leaning populists looking set to make huge gains.

According to an Ifop-Fiducial survey for Paris Match, Sud Radio, and CNews, the French leader’s party is polling at 20 percent, down three percent compared to June 2017.

Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is nipping at his heels on 17 percent — although its polling numbers are somewhat down since the last round of EU Parliament elections in 2014, where her party — then the Front National — came in first place.

“The ballot will be difficult for [Macron],” said an anonymous ministerial source quoted by Paris Match.

“I have a feeling that the European elections will be unlike any other because people are aware that Europe could die. That thought alone is enough to mobilise voters.”

MSM Struggles to Come to Terms with Populist Trump Beating Globalist Macron in Poll Ratings https://t.co/7A3r74LKGy — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) September 6, 2018

The poor poll numbers come just as Macron’s personal rating plummets to a dismal 31 percent, below even his Socialist predecessor François Hollande — in whose government Macron served as economy minister — who ultimately did not even attempt to run for a second term in the 2017 elections which saw his party decimated.

This has caused the mainstream media — which hailed the former Rothschild and Cie Banque financier as the new champion of globalism after Angela Merkel received a heavy blow in Germany’s federal elections — considerable dismay.

The Frenchman is not only less popular than U.S. President Donald Trump, who is decidedly not championed by the mainstream media, but appears unable to replicate the American populist’s economic success — leaving him poorly positioned to act as a counter-weight to the rise of European populists in Central Europe, Italy, and elsewhere.

Indeed, while Macron has styled himself as the “chief adversary” of anti-mass migration, pro-sovereignty leaders such as Italy’s Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, he can count on nothing like their level of domestic support — and both seem more than willing to publicly pour scorn on the French leader.

Follow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery