Rather like the UK - if it looks like extreme loonies will win (they make a lot of noise) the gentle middle ground comes out in force. Otherwise we don't bother to get involved in silly things like elections - we have no impact anyway and far too much else to do. As in Britain - a tiny amount of racists, bigots and simpletons vote for Reform but not enough to make any difference. But few like Labour either. Most of us think all politicians are either useless, don't care or cannot make a difference. A benign autocracy would work - a decent, good leader with a very restricted term selected by a person or people who know about the talents needed.

France is about to discover that a coaltion is the best form of democratic government.

Yes it transpires a lot of shouting about right wing governments taking over Europe has been just noise generated by far right supporters - media and public. Loud, opinionated (minority) bores.

"Surprise" says all media. No surprise at all unless one falls for media hype and thinks the tiny but loud (and good media story) amount of loonies - both right and left - are actually real. Just like COVID - pushed as a killer plague instead of a nasty new Coronavirus, dangerous to certain small areas of humanity (including elderly diabetic me but not including 95% of humanity). Or the Labour "landslide" with fewer votes than Corbyn got.