EARLY IN 2017, barely a year after he launched his whistle-stop campaign for the presidency, Emmanuel Macron seriously ruffled feathers in France when he told Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika that the “crimes and acts of barbarism” committed by the French army during the Algerian war of independence would today be considered “crimes against humanity”.

After fierce criticism from the right (another candidate for the presidency, the right-wing Francois Fillon, condemned what he called a “hatred of our history” and the “perpetual repentance that is unworthy of a candidate for the presidency of the republic”), Macron dropped the rhetoric for the duration of his campaign, and the whole first year of his presidency.