Macron's election gamble may have blocked the far right. But it didn't dim its appeal

France is a republic created by a general who wanted to be a monarch. So, more than 65 years ago, Charles de Gaulle designed a presidency with vast powers to name governments, call elections, pass laws without a vote and launch nuclear missiles. 

Like powerful monarchies of the past, its politics are irregularly punctuated by popular revolts.

A week ago, the latest revolt seemed about to topple — or at least severely wound — the sitting president, Emmanuel Macron, who believes the French regret beheading their last king and want to be ruled by a Jupiter-like leader.

The extreme-right National Rally captured a third of the votes in the first round of French legislative elections, which Macron unexpectedly called "to burst the abscess" of a fractious National Assembly, as he put it. 

He wanted a referendum on the far right. That referendum almost beheaded Jupiter.

But a week in politics is a long time. And elections in France are a complicated two-step minuet. It's not enough to come first in the first round — a candidate in a riding must win 50 per cent of the votes or face the voters again.

In the second round of voting on Sunday night, the National Rally, with its allies, was bounced into third place, with 143 seats (out of a total of 577). The winners on the night were the New Popular Front, a quarrelsome coalition of five left-wing parties. They only have 190 seats, however, far from a majority of 289.

Macron's centrist three-party grouping, Ensemble (or Together), came second with 158 seats, losing almost 90 seats compared to legislative elections two years ago.

WATCH | French voters back lefts, block far right in second round of voting:

Not surprisingly, there was little cheering in the presidential camp. Macron's prime minister and chief lieutenant, Gabriel Attal, announced he would resign but carry on as a caretaker. Macron himself said nothing.

The National Rally provokes fear because many in France believe it wants to create an "illiberal democracy," paying only lip service to laws, much like the regimes in Hungary and Italy it is friendly with. It even financed itself for almost 10 years with a loan from a Russian bank.

Still, the desperate "anything but them" electoral tactic proposed by the government — which called on voters to rally round the candidate best placed to beat the National Rally in each riding — had succeeded.

As Brice Teinturier, the head of IPSOS, a major French polling firm, said on French television, "negative mobilization worked. It shows that fear of the National Rally still can drive voters to defeat them."

The accent on the negative also left the country with no workable majority in sight.