It’s a bit hard for me to believe that the French election, the first of the European elections I’ve covered, was now more than a year ago. But one thing I’ve realized is that, just as it’s important to cover these campaigns and candidates during election season, it’s equally important to come back and understand how they’re faring once they actually take office.

So I went back to Paris to look at En Marche these days, and to understand how such a movement can transition its role when all of its leaders have effectively become the new French political establishment. When I was there, they were in the midst of a nationwide door-to-door campaign called the Grande Marche Pour L’Europe; I went along with a few of the volunteer teams in Paris and spent some time with members and leaders of En Marche (now officially rebranded as La République En Marche, or “the Republic on the move”).

It was clear this challenge had occurred to every one of the En Marche officials or volunteers I spoke with: they all realized the challenge they faced and had ideas for how to solve it. But to a certain extent, there are some inherent contradictions in Macron’s upstart movement — and I looked at how they’re trying to maintain their image as a grassroots-driven, bottom-up organization at a time when their former leader is running a very top-down administration in France.

You can read the piece, for The Atlantic, here. With my Bosch fellowship coming to a close, I’ll be staying put in Berlin and doing some Germany-related reporting for the next few weeks — and will have more on my next steps soon as well.