On the evening of 21 April 2002 the result of the first round of voting in the French presidential election was announced. It had been widely, though not universally, assumed that the outcome would see the field reduced to two contenders: the incumbent conservative president, Jacques Chirac, and the socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, with whom Chirac had uneasily shared power for five years. A shudder of shock, shame, disbelief and, in many places, delight, swept the country when it became clear that Chirac would face not Jospin, but Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far-right, xenophobic and racist
