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CER director of research John Springford said: “Something similar to the Swiss deal, but without free movement, would be the very best that Britain can hope for. “The EU might not be prepared to offer the UK such a deal, since the Swiss have accepted free movement as the price of single market participation in goods, and the EU want the Swiss to download EU law more rapidly.

Others are sceptical about whether Macron can convince the Germans to do a deal. Christian Odendahl of the Centre for European Reform points to a lack of "intellectual convergence" between Berlin and Paris on what Europe really needs. "In Berlin, there isn't a great sense of urgency. They see this as a marathon, not a sprint. There is a preference for incremental improvements in Europe rather than bold new projects," he said.

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, believes the election may have a limited impact on the course of the negotiations. “I think it will strengthen her hand domestically. She says it’s to strengthen her hand with the EU. It doesn’t make any difference to the EU, because the EU has the whip hand. The EU is in a strong position, and Britain is in a weak position, and the fact that she has a strong majority behind her doesn’t really change the fundamentals of the power relationship between the EU and the UK,” he says.

Still, the element of fear can’t be underestimated in the voters’ decision, said Simon Tilford, deputy-director at the London-based Centre for European Reform. “Of all the candidates, Le Pen is the one most likely to benefit,” he said. “The fear is this will heighten concern about Islamic terrorism and enable Le Pen to tap into fears over migration and refugees.”

“It would show that liberal, pro-EU centrists may yet have a future in European politics,” says Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform. “Macron wants reforms to pep up France’s economy and strengthen its position in Europe.” A Macron win could also suggest that, after Britain’s decision to leave and the shock election of Donald Trump in the US, “the demise of liberalism, internationalism and the EU ... may not be inevitable,” Grant added.

"The approval of the constitutional changes makes the prospect of Turkey's accession to the EU recede even further," Luigi Scazzieri, research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, said in an emailed statement. "Many European leaders are already calling into question the future of the accession process."

Agata Gostynska-Jakubowska of the Centre for European Reform says the tools the bloc has to address rule of law issues aren’t working properly. “When a government violates European law and in the process goes against democratic values the commission can open an infringement procedure and bring the case in front of the Court of Justice. This procedure cannot be applied however when an EU government backtracks on democratic values but does not break any EU law. If the European Commission does not find any evidence that the EU law has been broken by government's reforms on higher education there is little it can do.”