Attempts to trigger a national referendum – or RIP – on plans to privatise Paris airports have thrown a spanner in the works for Emmanuel Macron. But they may also help the president deliver on a pledge to breathe new life into French democracy.

Paris, June 25.– In an unprecedented show of unity, Macron’s opponents from left and right held their first joint meeting in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis this week, kick-starting a campaign to keep Aéroports de Paris (ADP), one of the French state’s “crown jewels”, in public hands.