Extremes' Loss is Centre's Gain in French Elections

A number of fault lines emerged from the first round of the French presidential election, most obviously the left-right split between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy.

But the extent of division should not be overstated: there was a sizeable vote for the centrist candidate François Bayrou, whose 7 million votes are now up for grabs, and a loss of support for the political extremes.

The far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who astounded France and the world when his National Front came second in the 2002 presidential race, saw his vote shrink from 18% to 10%. Granted, many of his potential voters were seduced by Mr Sarkozy's promise to set up a ministry of immigration and national identity. But the fact of the matter is that Mr Le Pen was sidelined.

Similarly, many on the left who voted for fringe candidates last time were chastened by the experience of 2002, when a weakening of support for the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, allowed Mr Le Pen to slip through.

This time, France's left rallied to Ms Royal, spurning green, anti-globalisation and Trotskyist candidates. The communist vote dropped to an all-time low of 1.9%, and the extreme left vote as a whole dropped to 9% from almost 14% in 2002; the extreme right vote fell to 12.7% from 19.2%.

A look at the electoral map after the first round does, however, show a clear regional split. Most of the vote for Ms Royal came from the west and southwest of France, while Mr Sarkozy took the rest of the country.

Ms Royal's base tended to be in urban areas. Many black and Muslim voters from troubled areas voted for the first time yesterday, and Ms Royal won more than 40% in towns such as the Paris satellite of Clichy-sous-Bois, where riots broke out in 2005.

Voter registration was up throughout France, to 44.5 million people, adding 3.3 million voters, but few areas experienced as dramatic a rise as the poor suburbs did. In Seine-Saint-Denis, the region that contains Clichy-sous-Bois, registration was up by 8.5% - more than twice the average nationwide increase of 4.2%.

Newly registered voters were divided almost evenly, however, between Ms Royal, Mr Sarkozy and Mr Bayrou, an Ipsos poll found. The big loser was Mr Le Pen, who won only 7% of their votes.

Mr Sarkozy won the support of almost half of voters over 70, while Ms Royal did well with the young, taking almost 30% of the votes of those aged 18 to 24.

But Ms Royal may well be disappointed that she did not win the support of more women, who make up the majority of the electorate. Women voted for Mr Sarkozy and Ms Royal equally, despite the Socialist candidate's unabashed pitch towards the end of her campaign for female voters' backing.