Emmanuel Macron’s Empty Victory

French president’s deal with Germany on deeper eurozone integration is far from all he had hoped for

Emmanuel Macron campaigned to become president of France by wrapping himself in a European Union flag and promising to make Europe great again. He saw off his euroskeptic rival Marine Le Pen by offering an alternative vision of a “Europe which protects,” and expanded on that vision in a two-hour speech at the Sorbonne in September that outlined his manifesto for wide-ranging EU reform.

Now after weeks of intensive negotiation—including more than 30 hours of face-to-face talks over three weekends between French Finance Minister...