It has become conventional wisdom: populist parties are on the rise across Europe, from left (Jean-Luc Mélenchon) to right (Marine Le Pen), and in widely different national and local contexts – from Bradford to Budapest.
"Tillis is a white wine guy in a blue jean and beer party," quipped one local Democratic campaign aide.
Jean-Guillaume Héau said that he felt both sad and elated – that he had just experienced something he never expected to see in his whole life.
In July they volunteered to accept 21% but Jean-Claude Juncker, eurogroup chairman, now says: "We have agreed that we have to have a significant increase in the banks' contribution".
The added complication is that Vestager's boss and the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, was prime minister of Luxembourg for almost 20 years.
"Every significant war," says Jean-Marie Guéhenno, "would probably now begin with an internet attack".
Astonishingly, ECB chairman Jean-Claude Trichet said in a press conference on Thursday that the central bank had to stick to its "doctrine" – a word closer to strict Catholic rule than to the ever changing financial markets.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right Front National, allegedly held a hidden Swiss bank account via a trust overseen by his butler, containing €2.2m including €1.7m in gold ingots and coins, the investigative website Mediapart has reported.
The cafe is packed with young people drinking coffee and discussing, with touching Gallic intensity, film theory, Marxism and Jean-Luc Godard (his latest film has just been screened in the neighbouring cinema).
Tomorrow night, the prime minister will be laying on dinner at Chequers for Jean-Claude Juncker, the man he tried to block from being president of the commission.
Jean-Christophe Maillot is a man who knows his own luck.
