Emmanuel Macron’s work rate puts others to shame. As a slouching Boris Johnson hosted a boozy private party in Downing Street on Brexit eve, France’s busy-bee president was issuing a statesmanlike appeal to the British people. Macron called for the opening of a new chapter in what he described as an “unrivalled” relationship forged in “blood, freedom, courage, and battles”. The French “know what they owe the British,” he wrote. This was stirring, crafty stuff.

While Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, defied by her own party and the far right in Thuringia’s state election, watches the clock tick towards retirement, Macron is vigorously setting tougher terms for future EU enlargement, covering countries such as Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia. Even as the EU failed to agree a unanimous statement rejecting Donald Trump’s lopsided Middle East peace plan, Macron was stressing French support for a two-state solution after visiting Israel and meeting the Palestinian president in Ramallah.

In the few weeks since the year began, Macron has also chaired a summit with five African countries – Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania – and forged a new “coalition for the Sahel” to fight jihadist terror; chastised Turkey for meddling in Libya and sent warships to the eastern Mediterranean; and spent two days in Warsaw, trying to convince Eurosceptic Poland’s bad-boy leaders of the benefits of closer European cooperation. And that’s not counting time spent dealing with strikes and protests at home.

Last week’s foray to the Polish capital showed typical bravado. It suggested Macron’s confidence in his abilities remains undimmed, halfway through his term, even if that feeling is not shared by fellow citizens – his approval ratings currently languish in the low 30s.

Partly the visit was about mending bridges he burned in disputes over the Polish government’s attempts to control the judiciary and media. Partly it was a calculated move to take Britain’s vacated place as Poland’s best EU friend.

But mostly it was about persuading Polish people that Macron’s contentious ideas about developing autonomous European defence and security capabilities, resetting relations with Russia, and building a more integrated Europe will not undermine Nato and threaten the US alliance – which, in fact, they almost certainly will.

Key vehicles for this shift, long sought in various guises by French leaders, are the “European intervention initiative” launched by Macron in 2017 and his proposed “European security council”.

There is a broader point to all this busyness, going beyond specific issues. One common theme links Macron’s activities on the international stage – the urgent need, as he sees it, to promote Europe as a powerful, independent force in a world increasingly dominated by the US, China, and authoritarian, predatory populist-nationalist regimes.

Underpinning this ambition is Macron’s fierce attachment to post-Enlightenment humanist values, democratic principles, and progressive agendas, which are everywhere under attack.

European and world leaders at a summit in Germany last month. As many western countries lean towards populism, Macron is charting a course to defend Europe’s liberal principles. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Macron’s championing of Europe’s cause – typified by his clarion call last year for a “European renaissance” – is admirable and certainly welcome. The problem, and this applies inside France as much as it does outside, is that Macron is all but alone among the leaders of major powers.

No other senior politician in present-day Europe, or within the EU commission, appears similarly able or willing to take up the cudgels. Who else is ready to lead the fight? Not Merkel. Her fighting days are all but done. Not the schismatic, warring Spanish and Italians, nor the off-centre Poles. Certainly not the skulking Johnson.

Inside France, Marine Le Pen and her rebranded National Front (now the National Rally) lurk with malign intent, hoping to unseat Macron in 2022. Her argument, as ever, will be about identity and immigration, although she now pretends otherwise. The president is pilloried as a symbol of an out-of-touch, neoliberal global elite.

Next month’s municipal elections may go badly for him. Yet Macron, in many ways a traditional centrist, is also a radical reformer, as his public sector shake-up shows. In this, he is a true heir to Tony Blair – including the possibility that it will all go wrong. The battle for France is a battle for Europe, too.

Not only is Macron alone; he and the principles and values he espouses are losing ground internationally, too – or so it seems right now. Just look at the strength of the reactionary forces ranged against his model of progressive politics. In the US, the appalling Trump is triumphant, buoyed by his impeachment “exoneration”, disarray among his opponents, and most importantly, a booming economy. There seems less and less reason to believe he will be denied a second term, with all the awfulness that entails.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin, arch foe of western democracy, is blatantly fiddling the rules to assure a form of perpetual Putinism. In China, the cult of Xi Jinping, president-for-life and quintessential strongman leader, appears unassailable, coronavirus notwithstanding.

From India, Brazil, and the Philippines to Turkey, Israel, Hungary and Saudi Arabia, rightwing bullies, boors and braggarts hold centre stage. In New York, the kind of multilateralist, collaborative approaches favoured by Macron die a slow death in a neutered UN security council.

Spinning across this dark, forbidding landscape, guided by ideological stars from another era, Macron – once likened to Jupiter, the Roman god of gods – follows a solitary orbit, attacked at home and often patronised or ridiculed abroad.

In a cynical modern world that prioritises national self-interest, disrespects individual rights, and fails to tackle rising inequality, digital dictatorships, and environmental degradation, the odds are stacked against him. Yet with his quaint, almost old-fashioned ideas of solidarity and human betterment, Macron may be Europe’s last, best hope.