For three decades, Jean-Marie Le Pen has stalked French politics like an ogre scenting blood.

But on Sunday the leader of the ultra right National Front was shunted towards retirement in a vote which left him toothless and without prey.

The 78-year-old Mr Le Pen - in what most commentators expect to be his final presidential campaign - polled less than 11 per cent, his worst showing since 1974.

He won 1m fewer votes than in 2002, when he produced one of the biggest political earthquakes in contemporary French history by reaching the second round run-off against Jacques Chirac.

And for the first time in a recent election, the National Front failed to tap into the deep seam of discontent which runs through the French electorate after decades of high unemployment and insecurity.

Analysts said Mr Le Pen's support had ebbed towards Nicolas Sarkozy, who placed National Front themes, such as immigration, crime and the French identity, at the heart of his campaign.

'We won the battle of ideas,' said the National Front leader in an attempt to console himself and his supporters.

But he did not look like a winner at the 'party' organised by the National Front at its headquarters by the Seine outside Paris.

Behind his large, round glasses and with his shoulders stooping slightly, Mr Le Pen looked as though the years had caught up with him.

It was a measure of his decline that National Front officials openly questioned the strategy adopted by his daughter and chosen successor, Marine.

She pushed him to assume a veneer of political correctness and abandon the inflammatory and often racist rhetoric which had been his trademark.

Throughout the campaign, the ogre tried to convince the French that he had turned into a pleasant and almost avuncular character.

He smiled, talked in soft tones and appeared at the Paris Agricultural Fair in a strange, black and white cowboy hat.

The tactics won him no new friends and disconcerted his old ones.

After his failure, Mr Le Pen refused to announce his retirement and hinted that he may run again.

But although he has been written off before and come back, his political career appears at an end this time. He will be 83 when the presidency is next up for grabs in 2012 and no one believes he could stand then.

The only question is whether the National Front will slip away with him. He founded the party, built it and held it together,, so his departure may deprive it of its cement.

However, an ultra right current long been present in French politics and appears unlikely to disappear entirely. If the National Front cannot ride upon it, someone else almost certainly will.

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