French voters, shocked by the triumph of extreme-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of two-stage presidential elections, united in a backlash against him yesterday to halt his advance.
Polls show Le Pen has no chance of unseating incumbent center-right President Jacques Chirac in the run-off poll on May 5.
The surveys credit Le Pen, a 73-year-old ex-paratrooper who runs on an anti-immigration, anti-EU ticket, with no more than 20 percent of the vote.
But his stunning second place behind Chirac, 69, in Sunday's first round profoundly disoriented France and alarmed its EU neighbors, including Germany and the Netherlands, which are also heading into elections.
Protests erupted around the country overnight after the results became clear, and more took place yesterday, threatening to grow into an anti-Le Pen groundswell that could carry through to the May election.
Politicians from the left and the right urged the French to massively rally behind Chirac, if not to give him a second mandate, then at least to stall Le Pen's disconcerting rise and salvage France's international standing.
Chirac and others also went into emergency meetings to come up with strategies to stop Le Pen's National Front party from capitalizing on the upset in legislative elections that follow straight afterwards in June.
The governing Socialists, meanwhile, were in turmoil, searching for a new leader after their defeated presidential candidate, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, announced late Sunday he was resigning from political life after May 5.
Jospin came third with 16 percent, behind Le Pen with 17 percent and Chirac with 19.4 percent. His score confounded pollsters who had predicted a Chirac-Jospin run-off.
The polls now say Chirac will easily win the May second round with 80 percent of the vote.
The French press described the first-round results as a political crisis, an "earthquake" that would undermine a new, five-year mandate for Chirac.
They blamed Jospin's rout on a protest vote against him and Chirac which saw most of the ballots spread thin over other candidates, as well as a record low turnout.
Le Pen's tough law-and-order promises to tackle a growing crime wave he blames on immigrants were also seen as having wide appeal among voters.
"It wasn't a first round, it was a cataclysm," Liberation wrote in an editorial. "Today's hangover is horrible ... France is being pointed at, with a jabbing finger, as a source of shame among democracies."
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said Le Pen's showing was "alarming," while Israel's government, remembering that Le Pen once infamously called the Holocaust "a detail of history," exhorted France's Jews to pack up and leave.
Anti-Le Pen protests, meanwhile, were taking place in the French cities of Lyon, Strasbourg, Reims, Rouen and Besancon, with more planned later in the day.
Large demonstrations occurred overnight after Sunday's election.
In Paris, around 15,000 marched along streets before being blocked by police barricades at the central Place de la Concorde, next to the presidential palace and the French parliament building.
Riot squads fired tear gas to disperse the protesters early yesterday after a small group of youths tried to breach the barriers and scuffled with officers.
May 1 is likely to bring the street uproar to a head, when nationwide protests are expected to clash with a pro-Le Pen rally in central Paris just four days before the final presidential election round.
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