The results of France’s first-round elections are in, and few are surprised: Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron will face off in the second round. But Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s historic result opens up a new chapter in the French left’s history.

We won’t be able to offer closer analyses until we have the local voting data, so the reflections below remain at a very general level, based on the estimates provided by the polling companies and the partial results provided by the Interior Ministry as of midnight on April 23.

1. In the days leading up to the election, the Left had been largely written off, while the Right was buzzing, convinced that it could still pull off a triumph. The results were more complex than they expected. If we add up the votes of Arthaud, Hamon, Mélenchon, and Poutou we get 27.3 percent for the Left against 48.6 percent for the Right. But if we consider that part of Macron’s votes came from the Left, we instead find a balance of around 42 percent to 58 percent.