With just 24 days to go before the first round of French presidential voting, the political landscape has become borderline surreal, a dream state of self-induced hallucinations. The war in Ukraine has utterly overshadowed the vote. Any resemblance to an actual democratic contest might now be regarded as coincidental.

If the current polls are right, Macron will enter the second round with Marine Le Pen in a straight replay of 2017, with the same inevitable result.