France’s political class cannot say it has not been warned. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the veteran chief of the country’s National Front, caused an earthquake by edging out Lionel Jospin, the Socialist party candidate, from the run-off round of the presidential election. This week, a Harris Interactive poll reported that Mr Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, head of the far-right movement since January, would win the first round of a presidential election if held now.

Yes, it is only one poll, the margins were thin and a survey 14 months before next year’s election cannot claim to be an accurate forecast of how people will vote. But the parallels with 2002 are unsettling and Ms Le Pen’s stock is rising.

Now, as then, the occupant of the Elysée palace is a rightwinger who has lost his way. Then it was Jacques Chirac, whose trial on corruption charges was delayed in Paris this week; now it is Nicolas Sarkozy, who has found running France increasingly difficult since cruising to victory in 2007, floundering between cabinet reshuffles and unconvincing policy initiatives.