IF there is a speck of good news about the resurgence of the far-right French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, it is this. At least we are now taking notice of what is going on beyond that bit of water at the bottom of the country.

For French politics to fill the news is astonishing. Normally, we don't raise more than half an eyebrow at what occurs across the Channel.

France may be our nearest neighbour, but we don't so much chat over the garden fence as draw the curtains and look the other way.

This has been a week to show just how European we can be, when the mood takes us. Veritable pine forests have been felled to feed the newsprint expended on a possible affair between two Swedish exiles - a dalliance which has excited an enormous amount of entertaining fuss.

But just for a moment, prurient eyes were diverted from Sven-Goran Eriksson and Ulrika Jonsson to an altogether more gloomy European affair.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has won through to the last round of the French presidential election, unseating the socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin.

To see Le Pen on the television news, looking like a seemingly genial old uncle whose conversation all too easily turns vile, was deeply uncomfortable.

This is a man who famously describes the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history"; a man who believes in the repatriation of blacks; and a man who wants to reintroduce the death penalty.

Like all far-right politicians, Le Pen preys on fear and ignorance, turning the disillusionment of ordinary people into fertile ground in which to sprout the unspeakable.

There is no real chance that Le Pen will win next month's presidential run-off, as voters on the left will, with a lump of pride in their throat, turn to the conservative Jacques Chirac rather than see Le Pen succeed.

The old hate-monger will surely be routed, but he has two weeks in which to spout his favoured brand of ignorance.

There are lessons here for Britain, though few direct parallels.

One issue, something which has never been more than a side-stall manned by the foolishly optimistic, is that republicanism has been dealt another blow. If this is what can happen when voting for a president, it's hardly an advertisement for abolishing the monarchy (however much some of us might daydream).

The main implication for Britain is that democracy will sometimes run a crazy course, especially when disillusionment and disengagement set in.

Many in France felt that there was little point in voting in a discredited contest, and their apathy opened the door for Le Pen.

If ever there was an illustration of why it is always important to vote, here it is, writ large in smug chops, big glasses and the fake reasonableness of the truly dangerous.

In a way the French reaction to Le Penn was odd - one minute too fed up to vote, the next filling the streets with rowdy political protests. Passion after the event is less than constructive, but at least France has woken up to what has happened while its citizens slept or became surly, or gave into despondency at the seeming uselessness of voting or taking part.

The biggest lesson here for Britain is that politicians should try to turn the tide of apathy and suspicion, to recognise that many voters feel abandoned by political elites that seem too wrapped up in their own affairs.

We will have our unpleasant blips, in Oldham and the likes, where our own National Front and their loathsome ilk will continue to win seats in local elections.

But at least nothing on the French scale could ever happen here; could it?

Updated: 11:13 Thursday, April 25, 2002