French Brexit could be Emmanuel Macron's dreaded 'David Cameron' moment

David Cameron rolled the dice twice with the British constitution and its delicate settlement. First, over Scotland which - thank Heavens - did not result in the break up of the United Kingdom.

Then came Brexit two years later, when the then-Prime Minister assumed - wrongly - that the masses of British people would agree with him and stick with the Brussels elite. His miscalculation has dominated British politics ever since and condemned his political career to a premature end (until, of course, it was hastily resurrected by Rishi Sunak).

Yet, this is not what (now) Lord Cameron had presumed would happen back in 2016. He erroneously believed that in calling the referendum it would go his way and settle once and for all a raging debate within the Conservative Party.

Instead of putting the EU question to bed however, Cameron ignited a firestorm which has come to divide his party and the country ever since - the complete reverse of what he intended. Now his fellow centrist, French President Emmanuel Macron, could be about to make the same catastrophically blunder.

Having suffered huge losses in the recent European Parliamentary elections - and with support for his party at record lows against the rising Eurosceptic National Rally party - Macron has called a parliamentary election, with the hope (one assumes) of checking the rise of Rassemblement National or RN, as it is known in French.

Either Macron thinks the anti-RN vote will win out in the coming election or, if RN wins, and the young President of the party, Jordan Bardella, becomes the French Prime Minister, it will undermine RN in the run-up to a future presidential election which Marine Le Pen is set to contest once again.

Should Bardella become Prime Minister for instance, Macron could refuse presidential consent for any planned RN referendum on immigration, while presidential powers over foreign affairs would undermine RN when it comes to the EU question.

This may galvanise RN supporters, but it could also demoralise them, especially if the markets also react strongly against the now substantial French public debt (there has already been a selloff).

But if Macron's grand plan is to show up RN in government as a compromising and weak party, like Cameron before him the plot could backfire should French voters work out the plot and put Le Pen in power to govern alongside Bardella as a Right-wing dream team.

But Macron may be banking on chaos among the Right. Already, Les Républicains party has dumped leader, Éric Ciotti, after he called for an alliance with RN, although he has since vowed to stay in his job.

Now Éric Zemmour - leader of the nationalist Reconquête party - has dismissed Marine Le Pen's niece, Marion Maréchal, after she supported a united front of the Right. For Macron, this may confirm his sense that the Right will end fighting among itself both in the coming legislative elections and in a future presidential vote.

Moreover, Macron may be thinking the youthful Bardella will be out of his depth in public office. There are even wild rumours that Macron could quit the presidency, possibly allowing him to run for an effective third term against Le Pen.

In all of this however one cannot help but draw comparisons with Cameron and Brexit. Too clever by halves, that plan resulted in a populist revolt which convulsed the Conservative Party and, through a chain reaction, has taken us to a place where Labour is set for a bigger majority than Tony Blair, while Nigel Farage might end up as the unofficial leader of the Opposition.

Macron may be a strategic genius or could be about to make the mother of all miscalculations.