SEVEN years ago, when Emmanuel Macron was first elected president of France, it was with a campaign infused with optimism about Europe. The leader who sat down with The Economist on April 29th is an altogether graver figure. He has lost none of his combative energy. But his analysis of the threats encircling Europe is resolutely bleak. At stake is the survival of Europe as a safe place, a guarantor of prosperity and the liberal democratic order. “A civilisation can die,” Mr Macron warns, and the end can be “brutal”. “Things can happen much more quickly than we think.”