You thought the eurozone crisis was bad. Today, Europe faces no greater challenge than the mass exodus of refugees seeking a haven from the carnage in Syria and the turmoil in north Africa and the Sahel. It is equally clear that both the EU’s response and its institutions have proved woefully inadequate.

The question of immigration, a visceral issue in the way the single currency is not, is driving a wedge between EU populations and their governments, between member states and indeed between the EU itself and the values on which it was founded.

France — a country at the same time Mediterranean, Atlantic and continental — is at the heart of this new storm. It has a xenophobic and illiberal force all too keen to take advantage of popular fears about the impact of migration in the shape of the National Front, Europe’s largest extreme rightwing party, with a base representing some 25 per cent of the electorate. But, until now, Paris has not indicated that it has any clue how to cope.