France’s silent majority has rejected Macron – and Le Pen

I popped down to the Salle du Peuple on Sunday to see how the voting was going in the departmental and regional elections. Although I’m no longer a municipal councillor – à cause de Brexit – and am no longer required to help invigilate the polling, I thought I’d take the temperature. Which was frosty.

The French have a reputation for strong participation in elections, but not this time. By the time the votes were tallied, the winner was clear. Abstention won by a landslide. Two-thirds of my commune’s voters stayed at home, reflecting the national turnout. It was the lowest participation in at least 25 years and a vivid illustration of the rejection of voter confidence in every single candidate and party.

Nationally, the results were a debacle for candidates aligned with unloved president Emmanuel Macron, whose lists scraped barely 11 per cent. Things were equally bad for the hapless rightist Marine Le Pen, candidate of the Rassemblement National, née the National Front, whose hopes of leading the vote in numerous regions came to nothing.