Gallic Shrug. While turnout hit an all time low, those French voters who went to the polls seem to have given an overwhelming mandate to Jacques Chirac and his conservative alliance. But under the wacky French electoral system, it won't be over until the runoff elections next week and the left will undoubtedly try to get the stay-at-homes out of bed and the cafes. As for Le Pen and the National Front, the bogeyman of the effete elite did not fare overly well in the Chirac sweep. Perhaps because, as the AP reports,

The right has successfully tapped into a groundswell of discontent over burgeoning immigration and soaring crime. Chirac's new government, led by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is winning high approval ratings with proposals to increase the nation's law enforcement budget and a harder attitude toward illegal immigrants.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy took a somewhat bold step by visiting the controversial Sangatte refugee center, a magnet for illegal immigrants, and then announcing that France wanted to shut it down.

It seems to me that Chirac has cleverly done very well out of this whole deal and when all the fuss is over, it will have turned out to be merely the discarding of an increasingly addled Socialist regime that had lost touch with the nation. Hopefully, Chirac will also remember the issues that made the voters put the Socialists in the hydroflush and pulled the handle.