Remarkably, on the “Left”, the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) appears to be even more fiscally irresponsible. 

In fact, what could rattle the markets just as much as the prospect of either of these two groups forming a government is the danger of parliamentary deadlock, with no party or group of parties being able to form an effective government. Moreover, in these circumstances, President Macron might even resign. That would run the risk of bringing forward the prospect of Le Pen becoming president from 2027 to this year.

These disturbances in French markets have already rippled out to other members of the eurozone with spreads between those countries’ 10-year bonds and the German equivalent widening significantly. Of course, we have been here before and the EU has a habit of wading through such crises. At the moment, what has happened in France counts as a comparatively minor crisis compared to the events of 2012 concerning Greece, and even the sell-off in bond markets as a result of a planned fiscal expansion in Italy in 2018. 

At the very least, though, the prospect of a Le Pen presidency should give the markets pause for thought. Although she has dropped her advocacy of France leaving the euro and staging a referendum on France’s continued EU membership, she remains distinctly eurosceptic. If she wins, this would mean that further moves towards European integration would not proceed and the so-called Franco-German motor, which has driven the EU since the beginning, will have stalled, if not been taken off the road altogether.