Think back to the Second World War and Nazi Germany's occupation of France.
Not everyone, by a long shot, went along with it because they were instinctively or philosophically Nazis or wanted Germany to win the war.
Collaboration and acquiescence took many forms, from ordinary people trying to get through the war - as would have happened had Hitler occupied the UK and not just the Channel Islands - to enthusiasts doing everything they could in the Nazi cause.
So it is with the Front National. I cannot imagine myself ever voting for such a party, however fed up I might be with mainstream left and right, but have to accept that many of those doing so in the current, alarming round of municipal elections in France would, if not quite shudder at the thought, deny a racist outlook.
To them, the FN is indeed "another party". They feel immune from the establishment view that they are acting in an anti-republican manner, just as the BNP in Britain includes people who see themselves as free-spirited and right, not just Far Right and evil. There is even the hint of traditional French rebelliousness in their refusal to see themselves as part of a horrendous assault on democracy.
To think otherwise is too depressing, almost, for words.
But there is one common thread: everyone who votes FN seems perfectly happy to describe him/herself and be described as supporting the extrême droite. There are no airs and graces, no self-serving protestations that Marine le Pen's party is other than extremist.
I watched the results flowing in on the television in the Loire-Atlantique. "La vache" - can we agree on a translation of "hell's bells"? - was my brother-in-law's reaction to news of Le Pen's party securing a second-round presence in one of the bigger municipalities. He is not a rabid leftie - though his daughter-in-law, my nephew's wife - stood for the far-left Front Gauche in a Parisian suburb and collected a respectable 14.48 per cent, half as much again as she'd expected. She'd be in the second round if a 22-year-old upstart had not grabbed more than 50 per cent of the vote to ensure automatic election.
On Sunday, my beau-frère will vote UMP (Gaullist conservative) and may well, in his tiny way, help ensure another bad night for François Hollande's socialists. But one of his best friends voted FN and, I am assured, is just a fully-fledged member of the Fed Up to the Back Teeth party, not a true fascist.
On the other hand, having paid no attention to the British press since beginning my slow trip though France before the first round of the elections, I would be unsurprised to learn that some of the rabble-rousing rightwing columnists have been rejoicing at Le Pen's advances.
We shall see on Sunday night how many of the 229 municipalities in which the FN is still represented fall into the hands of the extrême droite. They already have Hénin-Beaumont in the north, where Steeve [sic] Briois was elected outright in the first round.
"We don't eat children," I heard him insist to a French TV reporter who wanted to know something about his programme for the town, and maybe they don't. But we shall soon seen what they do do. As Le Pen herself says, France is about to find out whether the FN is actually capable - despite the grim evidence of past attempts - to run a town hall.
The other localities where the party ended the first round in pole position, but not with an absolute majority, are Perpignan, Forbach, Fréjus, Avignon, Digne-les-Bains and Saint-Gilles. The FN is also associated with the first-round victories of Robert Ménard in Béziers and Jacques Bompart in Orange.
Marine Le Pen tells us she is not a racist, and that to be anti-immigration is not racist either.
Her party's broader respectability, though perhaps not its electability, depends on outsiders believing her - and not that she is merely a gentler, easier-on-the-eye-and-ear version of her terrible old father. Never let it be forgotten that Jean-Marie Le Pen considers the Holocaust "just a detail in the history of World War II" and Arabs to be people you can avoid having to see if only you buy a flat in a nice French suburb.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine, uncle of an FN member of parliament, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, remains to this day "founding president of honour" of the Front National.
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