Emmanuel Macron, a former merchant banker and a centrist candidate, is third in the polls for the presidential election but his ratings are improving

Panic swept through France’s traditional parties yesterday amid fears that the independent centrist rising up the opinion polls could eclipse them all in the battle to become president.

Emmanuel Macron, 39, a relative political novice who is threatening to reshape French politics, became the target of scorn and contempt as his rivals tried to halt his bandwagon.

Marine Le Pen, 48, the National Front leader, denounced Mr Macron as the “candidate of Brussels”; supporters of François Fillon, 62, the centre-right presidential contender, dismissed him as a “political fraud”; and Socialist leaders accused him of having impoverished French workers.

The attacks came amid increasing speculation that a once-unimaginable scenarioThe economic crisis shaking much of Europe, most extremely in nations like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, has been variously blamed on the global financial meltdown, the flawed design of the European Union, and even (predictably) on shenanigans on Wall Street which helped some EU member nations circumvent lending limits.

But something deeper and more fundamental is at work which the global credit crisis has merely helped to expose. Most European countries today operate under economic and labor policies crafted during the height of the post-war baby boom, featuring middle-class entitlements like generous pension systems that allow early retirement, liberal disability programs that exempt many laborers from work, and extended unemployment systems that make going on the dole and staying there easier than in the U.S. Europeans designed these