Voter dilemma: Who do French hate the least?

The race to be the next president of France could come down to voting for whoever will do the least damage, writes Noah Barkin. 

In Michel Houellebecq’s bleak satirical novel Submission, the French political order is turned on its head after the soul-crushing re-election in 2017 of Francois Hollande, the most unpopular president the country has ever seen.

“A strange, oppressive mood settled over France, a kind of suffocating despair, all-encompassing, but shot through with glints of insurrection,” writes Houellebecq in his 2015 bestseller.