Despite the Olympic Games and the reopening of Notre-Dame, France is unlikely to look back on 2024 with nostalgia and affection.
When history comes to be written it is quite possible that 2024 will be remembered as the year when France proved ungovernable.
The parliamentary election President Macron called in the summer simply rendered him impotent.
He is reportedly barely on speaking terms with his prime minister.
Despite the mixed bag of emotions Donald Trump provokes, the French could be forgiven for looking across the Atlantic and wishing they had someone so decisive – and with such a mandate – to govern them.
But then perhaps in just over two years’ time France could have its Trump equivalent in the Elysée Palace: Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (RN).
The two have much in common (apart from being blond(e) bombshells): they say the unsayable, have hardline views on immigration, and a firm suspicion of the free market.
Mr Trump may be a successful businessman and capitalist, but his addiction to tariffs on imports puts him outside the pale of modern conservative thought.
Ms Le Pen has what appear to be some positively socialist views about economics and labour; which have helped her draw more and more sup- port from organised labour.
One reason Mr Trump won so decisively on November 5 is because he directly appealed to working-class Americans in a way that his opponent, despite supposedly representing blue-collar America, could not.
However, what may possibly prevent Ms Le Pen from having her ‘Trump moment’ is the court case due for resolution on November 27, in which she and a number of her RN confederates are accused of misdirecting – or as the prosecutors put it, embezzling – a large quantity of EU funds by using them to pay her party’s staff to perform functions unconnected with the European Parliament.
The prosecutor has asked, if found guilty, that she be sent to prison for five years and disqualified from holding public office for the same length of time.
The former is unlikely; just as notables such as Presidents Chirac and Sarkozy and former prime minister François Fillon were either threatened with prison, or committed crimes that should have had them sent to prison, but never ended up there.
'Election ban would be an outrage'
The requested five-year ban seems less negotiable, and would have consequences for more than just her.
Gérald Darmanin, who was until earlier this year France’s interior minister and who himself has a chequered past – including accusations from two women of sexual coercion – has said that banning Ms Le Pen from standing in the next presidential election would be an outrage.
He is no adherent of hers: but he makes the point that as she is at present frontrunner for that election, the place to defeat her is at the ballot box and not in court.
I suspect also that Mr Darmanin is sufficiently experienced a politician to realise that in a heavily divided country – more of that in a moment – to deny the candidate with just about the largest following of any in the nation the chance to fight the election would be interpreted as an affront to democracy, and quite possibly a trigger for serious civil unrest.
France has enough troubles already without a judge encroaching on the realm of politics by handing down a punishment for alleged misbehaviour with the funds of an institution itself no stranger to squandering infinitely larger sums, and going for the most part unpunished.
The heir to the Le Pen dynasty
Should that unwise course be taken, the other beneficiary would be Jordan Bardella, Ms Le Pen’s right- hand man and heir apparent, who could coast to victory on a wave of sympathy for his leader and out of respect for what would be depicted as her martyrdom.
Mr Bardella would be effective at making the case for a Trump- soundalike becoming President of France, because the things that are wrong with France may well need a firm, Trumpian hand to resolve, given how Mr Macron’s approach has failed completely.
France is deeply divided, and a president with a strong mandate and strong ideas might at least create some degree of consensus again.
A new president could learn from Mr Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency in cutting the enormous French bureaucracy in an attempt to make the country live within its means.
If the size of the state could be cut, so too might the French public’s tax burden, which in turn may incentivise individuals and businesses to work harder, and promote the growth France needs.
France also has difficult relations with its neighbours.
Towards a right-wing EU
Who knows who will soon be in charge in Germany, but some other European countries have a political flavour that an RN president would find very much to her or his taste, such as Georgia Meloni in Italy or Viktor Orban in Hungary.
The politics of Europe are moving to the right, and the European Union is becoming detached from the feelings of some of its more important member states.
An RN/Trumpist victory in 2027 could alter not just the balance of Europe, but the future direction and, indeed, the powers and purpose of the European Union.
The belief among an increasing number of European parties that the future of the continent is about the nation state first and foremost is one the RN shares, and it is likely before too long to become the main theme of European politics.
France’s courts will decide whether Ms Le Pen will have her chance to emulate Mr Trump; France’s voters will decide whether her chance succeeds.
Not giving her that opportunity could well backfire: Donald Trump may not be the only leader to come back from the political dead.
