French elections: Another surprise result - humiliation for the extremists

Yet again, a French election produced a surprise but this time it was a pleasant one.

The unexpectedly low score of the far-right National Front in the first round of the parliamentary election yesterday caught pundits and pollsters on the hop. Opinion polls have consistently undercounted the NF vote. For the first time, in this election, they over-estimated it.

Even if you add Jean-Marie Le Pen's projected share of the national vote – 11.2 per cent – to the derisory score 1.3 per cent for the breakaway far-right National Movement of Bruno Megret, the total vote for the extreme right (12.5 per cent) was the lowest in a national election for nine years. The NF had hoped to survive into next week's second round in more than 200 constituencies. Early projections last night suggested they would be eliminated in all but 30 to 50 seats.

This is not the first time that the far right vote has lurched downwards but yesterday's score will come as a relief to many in France after the internal divisions – and international obloquy – generated by Mr Le Pen's success in the presidential election in April.

French voters showed their continuing disgust with mainstream politics in other ways yesterday – by failing to vote at all, or by scattering their votes over the record field of marginal and self-proclaimed mainstream candidates. The low turnout will still mean the elimination of many mainstream candidates, causing some lop-sided contests in the second round next week between the far right and one other surviving contender of centre-right or left. But, for the first time, taking the country as a whole, it was the far right which failed to get out its vote.

The record low turn-out of 64 per cent might have been expected to magnify the National Front vote, as it still did in some of its strongholds in the north, east and south.

The National Front still managed to top the poll in scores of constituencies in its heartlands in the north, east and south but is not expected to win more than two seats next week and may win none. This suggests that the high vote for Mr Le Pen in April, and even the 18 per cent that he got in the second round of the presidential elections, was largely a protest vote, rather than a permanent shift in French attitudes towards the anti- immigrant, anti-Semitic, anti-European ultra right.

Although a comprehensive victory for President Jacques Chirac's centre-right now seems certain in the second round next week, the seemingly scattered and dispirited left did somewhat better than expected. Whether this will be enough to preserve the new socialist leader, Francois Hollande's chances of emerging as the new dominant figure on the French left is unclear.

One significant result was the historically low score of the once powerful French Communist Party, which scored only just over 4 per cent and may not emerge with the 20 seats it needs to remain a separate group in parliament.