The president works in a gilded corner office with a view across the Elysée Palace gardens that was once the bedroom of Eugénie, the wife of Emperor Napoleon III.

At 40, Emmanuel Macron has come from obscurity in less than a year to be one of the most recognisable faces in the world as the leader of France, elected as a reformer who says he is “neither left nor right”.

The imperious style, his air of cold command and a mercurial dexterity with the French language mark him out for scorn by his foes, derision by the satirical press and approval by a majority of the public as the man who has put France back on the global map.

“He is benefiting from the problems