FRANCE:The French electorate again showed a special talent for defying predictions by giving a bitter victory to the right and a beautiful defeat to the left on Sunday night.
But it was a double human drama - the break-up of France's socialist first couple and the humiliation of the former prime minister Alain Juppé - that attracted most attention yesterday.
François Hollande went on France Info radio yesterday morning, just a few minutes after another station, France Inter, broadcast a pre-recorded interview with his partner of nearly 30 years, Ségolène Royal. Hollande confirmed the end of their relationship but refused further comment on the grounds of privacy.
"A certain number of rumours about François Hollande and me have been circulating for a while," Ms Royal sighed at the start of her interview with Françoise Degois of France Inter.
"I think it was necessary to clarify things," Ms Royal continued. "We've decided not to be together any more. Like many couples, we had difficulties.
"We decided to put them on hold during the presidential and legislative election campaigns. For me it was necessary to protect my children. I proposed to François that he live his own life and he accepted. The separation is a fact: we no longer live in the same home."
Thus ended a love story unprecedented in French politics: a bright young couple who met at the École Nationale d'Administration, were recruited by François Mitterrand, had four children together but never married, and were then driven apart by his affair with a Paris Match journalist and rivalry for control of the Socialist Party.
"I won't do anything against François," Ms Royal has said. But the country now knows she is waiting for him to step down so she can lead the Socialist Party.
The other human drama was the defeat by only 670 votes of Alain Juppé, the former right-wing prime minister, former foreign minister and the man whom president Jacques Chirac called "the best among us".
Mr Juppé was condemned to one year's ineligibility for his part in a party financing scandal and had returned to politics as the mayor of Bordeaux only last year.
"You'd be happy if I died," Mr Juppé testily said to journalists yesterday, hours before handing his resignation to prime minister François Fillon. It was Mr Fillon who ordained on May 23rd: "Logic says that when one is beaten, it means one doesn't have the support of the people and one cannot stay in government."
At the prompting of Nicolas Hulot, a popular ecologist and television presenter, Mr Sarkozy had custom-made a "super ministry" for the environment, energy, transport and sustainable development for the brilliant Mr Juppé, who was also de facto deputy prime minister. The president yesterday was searching for a replacement with comparable international stature.
Two names are circulating: Michel Barnier, who has served as environment and foreign minister and a European commissioner, and Hubert Védrine, former socialist foreign minister who lost the foreign ministry to the "French doctor" Bernard Kouchner when the first Fillon government was formed last month.
Reliable sources said Mr Sarkozy came under pressure from the French Jewish council CRIF, who opposed Mr Védrine on the grounds that he sympathised with the Palestinians.
The right-wing UMP and its associates won 323 seats in the Assembly, a comfortable majority. It was the fourth UMP election victory in eight weeks and the first time that a parliamentary majority has been returned in 25 years. Yet the disappointing score was widely interpreted as a warning to Mr Sarkozy.
"The UMP steamroller stalled," said Libération newspaper. "Voters signalled their refusal . . . to give total power to one man." A strong opposition in parliament may mean French people feel less compelled to fight Mr Sarkozy's policies on the streets. Women's rights were also advanced by the election.
By electing 18.54 per cent female deputies, France moved from 86th place internationally to 58th place.
Participation however reached a record low, with 40.01 per cent abstention, compared with 39.6 per cent in the first round. Believing a landslide victory was guaranteed, right-wing voters abstained massively, while left-wing voters were mobilised by two themes: the dangers of an all-powerful "Sarko State" and claims that the government would raise VAT.