Who will win the French election – and does it even matter?

Who will win the French presidential election? Does it even matter? Nothing in the programmes or personalities of the leading contenders gives confidence that any of them can fix the Fifth Republic and the corruption, dysfunction and stagnation that it has inflicted on the French. At Marie-Trinité’s café in the southern French village where I am an elected councillor, the mood before the voting is one of weary resignation and disgust.

Yet this election does matter, and it can make a difference, not only because all of the probable outcomes threaten to make things even worse, but because almost all of them have the potential to be particularly painful for Britain, whatever the result of our own election on June 8.

Jonathan Fenby and Aline-Florence Manent dissect France’s election conundrum:

The first-round vote in France offers a smorgasbord of 11 candidates, from the bonkers through to the quixotic. Of these, the polls suggest, only four have any hope of getting through to the top-two run-off two weeks from now.