I can now see more point in the French electoral system. When I began covering the presidential campaign before Christmas, the idea of an election being in two rounds seemed an unnecessary waste of money, the idea of following two rounds of presidential election so closely with two more rounds of parliamentary elections an absurd overdose. But in fact with yesterday’s result I can see it allows voters to adjust their positions, reacting to events like a driver on a mountain road. Whereas in Britain the voters have only one chance, after which it is too late to remedy their mistake, the French have convincingly showed that with four votes over a period of eight weeks they can fine-tune their government. Until yesterday it looked as though, with the Socialist Party in utter disarray, Sarkozy was going to swamp the country with his people. But the French voter thinks differently, and although Sarkozy has a good majority it is less than the media predicted.

For me the most important detail of the election, and the most encouraging sign that the French voter is still alive and kicking, was the defeat of Alain Juppé. He epitomises some of the very worst aspects of the political animal: too clever, arrogant and dishonest. In 1995/6 he tried to reform France without negotiation and was humiliated by losing the elections he called quite unnecessarily in 1997. In 2004 he was found guilty for the part he played in the fictional jobs scam at the Paris town hall. One would have thought that conviction, revealing either his dishonesty or his inability to see he was breaking a law he himself had voted in, would have taught him a second, perhaps deeper lesson in humility. But no, in 2006 as soon as his punishment of a year’s ineligibility for elected office was purged, he organised an ugly election for the town hall of Bordeaux: they were not due for another 18 months or so, but he wanted his job back straight away. He was voted in, but with less than 45% of the electorate bothering to vote, so his 56% majority in fact represents less than a quarter of the voting population (he got less than 30,000 votes out of an electorate of 120,000). All this being taken into consideration, it seems me that choosing a man like Juppé to be No. 2 in government was a major blunder by François Fillon, or more likely Sarkozy. Juppé’s defeat and third humiliation yesterday shows that already people are not as happy with M. Sarkozy or his choices as the newspapers wanted us to believe.

Another pointer in that direction is the media’s interpretation of why the Blue Tsunami failed to engulf France yesterday. They say it’s because of the unpopularity of two reforms which Sarkozy is already trying to hurry through. One is known as “the social VAT”, which people have been told would increase prices. The other is a reform to the health system, making patients pay a certain amount each year, say 10 euro, as a forfeit for their otherwise still reimbursable health care. If it is true that these two relatively mild reforms (but ones which touch everyone, as opposed to just one sector of society) increased the anti-Sarkozy vote, then all the stuff about France being at last ready for reforms is probably untrue. Sarkozy’s bulldozing manner may yet lead to chaos in September. Certainly yesterday’s stronger showing by the PS will give confidence to the unions and their sympathisers.

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