Weekend Roundup: In France, Reality Has Escaped Its Institutions

The first round of France’s presidential elections last weekend demonstrated that the clear-cut division of loyalties to the old mainstream parties ― the left and right political divide born during the French Revolution ― has collapsed in France. In the industrial era, the left always stood for social protection from the insecurities spawned by the market, while the right championed the blood, soil and tradition of “a certain idea of France,” as Charles de Gaulle once put it. All that has...