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Voters in the Netherlands may have turned their back on the anti-establishment populist candidate Geert Wilders, but do not assume this means France will do the same.
It is still possible that the National Front's Marine Le Pen could win the presidential race after France votes on April 23 and May 7.
It would be extremely difficult but it is not impossible.
It would be unwise to use the Dutch result as a reason to write off her chances.
The French President, Francois Hollande called the Netherlands result "a clear victory against extremism".
"The values of openness, respect for others, and a faith in Europe's future are the only true response to the nationalist impulses and isolationism that are shaking the world," he said.
And French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, who is tipped as most likely to win the election, said the Netherlands showed "the breakthrough of the extreme right is not inevitable and that European progressives are growing in power".
But Geert Wilders begs to differ — even in defeat he remains confident that the "patriotic spring" will continue.
France Votes
French voters will choose between five main candidates and a handful of others on April 23.
If none of them get 50 per cent of the vote, two will go through to the final round.
At this stage Emmanuel Macron, who founded his own movement called En Marche! in April last year, and Ms Le Pen are considered the two most likely.
Ms Le Pen's policies are similar to those of Mr Wilders.
The 48-year-old wants France out of the European Union and she wants to get rid of the euro currency.
She is promising to crack down on "uncontrolled immigration" and globalisation.
But France and the Netherlands are very different electorates, as is their political culture.
As the ABC's Steve Cannane pointed out, populism feeds off a sense of grievance, and the Dutch simply did not have too much to complain about.
But the French do.
French woes
The country has faced horrific terror attacks in Paris and Nice and remains under a state of emergency.
There is also a great divide in France between the rich and poor.
Maps which show the parts of the country suffering from high unemployment rates are very similar to the boundaries where support for National Front is high.
Unlike the Netherlands, the French are electing their president, not their parliament — that vote comes later, in June.
The French vote is likely to have more of the characteristics of Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump's success in the US, than the Netherlands.
James Shields, a professor of French politics at Aston University in Birmingham, said it was not instructive to compare the Netherlands and France.
"It might be tempting to look at France and say well Marine Le Pen and her party look even weaker in the light of the Dutch result, and therefore we should revise how we're seeing Le Pen in this election, but that would be a mistake," he said.
"She's been leading in the poll now not just for a short time but for years — two to three years.
"Marine Le Pen being in the second round of the presidential election has looked like a racing certainty.
"I think there's still every reason to believe she will make that second round — for her, that's where the problem begins."
When she faces a single opponent and not the fragmented group in the first round, it looks impossible for her to get across 50 per cent of the vote.
But she does not have to win to have a significant impact on future French policies.
It would be dangerous for her opponents to think the vote in the Netherlands is a sign the populist momentum has been curbed.
Topics: world-politics, government-and-politics, france, netherlands
First posted