Ahead of the exit poll last night – every expectation had been that the far right National Rally would have the largest number of representatives in parliament with Marine Le Pen’s prodigee, the 28-year-old Jordan Bardella at its helm.

But Emmanuel Macron’s enormous gamble to force the French public to confront this reality seems to have worked – well sort of. After winning the first round of the election eight days ago, the second round saw a unique coalition of convenience unite some very strange bedfellows in a single cause: to keep the nationalist right from power.

But the second part of the gamble – to find a stable government – has not worked.The far left, who hate Macron as much as the far right are now more prominent than ever and France is in for weeks, if not months of chaos and confusion. ‘FRANCE INGOUVERNABLE’ as one newspaper put it on its front page.