For researchers Stefano Palombarini and Bruno Amable, the young liberal candidate Emmanuel Macron wasn’t lying in 2017 when he said he stood for “both Left and Right.” In their book, The Last Neoliberal, they analyze how he brought together free-marketeer and pro-EU elements of both the Parti Socialiste and the conservative Les Républicains in the name of accelerating France’s neoliberal revolution

In their book, they note that while this “bourgeois bloc” crosses the old Left-Right divide, it also has a narrow social base — carrying through its planned reforms regardless of popular support and the depletion of the old party apparatuses. The effects of such an approach are today clear, with polls ahead of today’s presidential election showing that Macron is struggling even to mobilize voters against the threat of Marine Le Pen.

But even while Macron has governed from the right, picking his key ministers from Les Républicains, the old neoliberalized left hasn’t revived. Polling scores for Parti Socialiste candidate Anne Hidalgo put her at only 1 percent — a damning indictment of a once mighty party that held the presidency only five years ago.