French elections

How Marine Le Pen could win the French presidency

What if voters, however, uninspired by the alternative to Ms Le Pen—whether François Fillon (centre-right), Emmanuel Macron (centre), or Benoît Hamon (Socialist)—decided to stay at home en masse, rather than uniting behind her second-round opponent? In order to gain an absolute majority on the most conservative assumption (9m votes), turn-out would have to collapse to around 40%. If Ms Le Pen managed the higher figure (14.6m votes), turn-out would have to drop to 63%, or some 68% if spoiled ballot papers were included. Since the Fifth Republic was founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958, this has never happened. Which makes a President Marine Le Pen unlikely—but not impossible.