France delivered a resounding blow to the extreme right-wing National Front by re-electing President Jacques Chirac with 82.5 per cent of the vote yesterday.
Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose surprise success two weeks ago sent shock waves across Europe, gained only 17.5 per cent - only a slight improvement on the 16.86 per cent he won in the first round.
Mr Chirac received 27 million votes - the all-time record for a French president. Mr Le Pen received only 6 million votes.
The abstention rate of 19.8 per cent was much lower than the first round, when 28.4 per cent of registered voters did not cast ballots.
Party workers at Mr Chirac's headquarters leaned out of windows shouting "Chi-rac, Chi-rac" when the results were announced at 8 p.m. The crowd in the street held banners saying, "Chi-chi we love you," and "Supermeneur" (Superleader) - an allusion to the nickname of "Supermenteur" (Superliar) which plagued Mr Chirac during the campaign.
In his victory speech, Mr Chirac said: "We have just lived through grave worries for the nation. This evening France has reaffirmed its attachment to the values of the republic. I salute France that is faithful to herself, faithful to her great ideals, faithful to her universal and humanist vocation."
He said he had "heard and understood" voters' demands "that politics should change".
In a brief speech admitting defeat, Mr Le Pen denounced "the soviet method, using all forces - social, political, economic and the media" against him. His deputy, Mr Bruno Gollnisch, said the National Front's programme had been misrepresented.
"Jean-Marie Le Pen was portrayed as a monster, a sort of hybrid of Frankenstein and Hitler. Schoolchildren were sent out in the streets against him."
Mr Chirac will name a new prime minister today, probably the senator and president of the Poitou-Charentes region, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
"Reducing insecurity is the first priority of the state for the foreseeable future," Mr Chirac said.
Crime rose 16 per cent under the government of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin since 1997, and it was Mr Le Pen's tough law-and-order, anti-immigrant stance, that helped him reach the second round.
The new government will include a ministry of security, with authority over the police and the paramilitary gendarmerie, formerly under the authority of the defence ministry. By moving quickly in his fight against crime, Mr Chirac will hope to win votes in next month's legislative elections.
The new government is expected to put forward a draft law on the police and justice, and to "reconquer" immigrant banlieues, or suburbs, where the state no longer exercises its authority.
Both Mr Chirac and the socialist leader Mr Francois Hollande - who must now try to revive his party - said the past two weeks and the fear inspired by Mr Le Pen's campaign had strengthened and revived French democracy. But, Mr Hollande noted, Mr Chirac was re-elected "not based on a programme, as in 1995, but with a simple mandate to enable our democracy to live fully".
A new situation had been created, he said, alluding to Mr Chirac's landslide with votes from the left. "The right would be wrong tonight to assume it has the confidence of our country and to claim full powers for itself."
The left considers that it "did the work" of mobilising French voters against Mr Le Pen. Asked how Mr Chirac would know what percentage of voters wanted to vote for him, Mr Chirac's closest ally, the former prime minister Mr Alain Juppé, said: "I've never seen votes divided up that way. From the moment you're elected, you're the president of all Frenchmen."