In the major Breton towns of Rennes and Nantes, schoolchildren have taken the lead, supported by college students, in getting an estimated 11,000 demonstrators a day on to the streets. Pierre, a schoolboy, said: “Young people must get mobilised. Maybe it’s undemocratic to reject the popular vote, but we have to show that the National Front’s score is unacceptable in a democracy.”

In southwestern France, schools in the Charente region were effectively closed for the day as students took to the streets in Jonzac, Pons and Saintes before travelling to the large port town of La Rochelle to stage a noisy protest rally in front of the town hall.

Even in the far western port of Brest, the numbers of students and schoolchild protesters on the streets rose to 400 yesterday.

In La Rochelle, chanting “Non à Fascisme, Non à Le Pen!” and “Le Pen en prison!”, more than 5,000 students crowded the square waving homemade banners bearing the words: “Halte les fascistes!” Many students had also written anti-Le Pen slogans in black marker pen on the back of their T-shirts, comparing M Le Pen to Hitler and saying that voting for him was like voting for the gas chambers.

In Jonzac, 200 students brought the food market to a halt when they marched into the market place and tore down a poster of M Le Pen, to loud cheers. Angélique Olivier, a student who helped to organise the protest in Jonzac, said: “Le Pen is profiting from people's fears about violence and immigration. Many of our parents and grandparents hear of the growing problems of violence in the big cities and are afraid about what could happen here.

“They feel very insecure and they think Le Pen is offering a solution. But they’re wrong and we want to change their views.” Céline Pavie said: “France is a mixture of nationalities and cultures, but Le Pen wants to turn us into a narrow society.”

Bernard Leveque, editor of Jonzac's newspaper said: “An enormous number of people on the Left are full of remorse because they could have done something to stop Le Pen. They voted without thinking.”