This is the map after the 1st round the other day. The far-right is in brown, and clearly dominates the landscape.
How did they end up third in the second round? Well, my not very serious guess is that tons of French folks watched football on Friday night. It was France VS Portugal. The French team is 90% black men, and won. That made tons of French citizens feel guilty, and they pulled a switcheroo in the second round over the weekend. I don’t know if that’s very French but it feels like it is.
Far-right vibes are not gone though. They keep growing. Governing this moving forward (tripartite government) is going to be nicely chaotic.