The first round of voting in France’s municipal elections has laid bare the country’s deep fractures. In a turnout of 56 per cent yesterday, none of the parties emerged dominant ahead of this Sunday’s second round, but the results underlined the mainstream support now enjoyed by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s la France Insoumise (LFI).

Last month, France’s Interior Minister, Laurent Nunez, categorised the LFI as ‘extreme-left’, to go with the representation of the National Rally as ‘extreme-right’. If he had hoped to deter voters from casting a ballot for either party, Nunez’s tactic failed. Nothing, it seems, will stop the rise of either Le Pen or Melenchon.

The municipal elections are the first time the French have gone to the polls since the leader of the National Rally was convicted by a court last year of misusing EU funds. Le Pen has appealed her five-year ban from politics (the result of which will be known in July) but her conviction hasn’t dented her popularity.

This is a taste of things to come ahead of next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections

This is a taste of things to come ahead of next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections

Her party was re-elected to power in the deep south city of Perpignan while they or their allies are in the........

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