What the commentators said

Fillon’s success has been greeted with “undisguised gloating” from the National Front, said Gavin Mortimer in The Spectator. And it’s easy to see why: if it comes to a straight fight with Marine Le Pen next spring, it can pillory the 62-year-old as a “fully paid-up member of the outof-touch political elite, who has never lived in the real world”. After all, this is a man who drives racing cars for a hobby and lives in a “sumptuous chateau”. To make matters worse, Fillon is an avowed admirer of Margaret Thatcher, pushing just the kind of agenda that always alarms the French Left, said Harry de Quetteville in The Daily Telegraph. Undoubtedly, the French economy needs a “shot in the arm”. Unemployment is “staggeringly high”, at around 10%, and public spending accounts for a “gargantuan” 57% of the economy. But Fillon’s manifesto would drive many left-wingers straight “into the arms of Le Pen”, helping to create “the angry coalition she needs to sweep to power”.

In fact, conditions for a swing to the “authoritarian”, anti-immigrant Right are even stronger in France than in the US, said Gideon Rachman in the FT. The country has seen “savage terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists”, and there are huge, poorly integrated Muslim communities in most big cities. On the other hand, France’s “bitter memories of the Vichy regime of the 1940s may mean that the country is better inoculated against far-right politics than the US”. Fillon has actually strengthened his chances by edging to the right, said Pierre Haski in The Guardian. Only a couple of months ago, he published a book on how to combat “Islamic totalitarianism”. If he does win, we British will have particular reason to celebrate, said Andreas Whittam Smith in The Independent. An Anglophile with a Welsh wife, he favours a “Europe of nations” that respects national sovereignty. Should he succeed, he could be just the ally in Europe we need when our Brexit negotiations reach a “crucial stage” next year.