And now it happens.

At precisely 8pm, the provisional results flash through on 10,000 iPhones, and a massive roar goes up.

La gauche est en tete!

The left is in the lead!

Tears, cheers, jeers, chants and rants are the result – but the overall feeling is sheer joie.

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Ah, sing it, mes amis. And so they do.

Le jour de gloire, est arrive!

For now, the menace of a huge shift to the right has been defeated, and those black-shirt boyos now melting away might win another day, but not today.

For me, standing high on the monument myself and looking around, was to get a grasp on how this extraordinary win was put together.

One blonde young woman held up a sign: La France a moi, elle est metisse. “My France, she is mixed race.”

And the proof was all around her in this throbbing, ecstatic crowd. For they were indeed all colours of the rainbow, all religions, all sexualities, all ages, all abilities and disabilities. Many were in wheelchairs, some were infirm, a lot were wearing the headwear of Islamic adherents. Right up the front, a little boy was kicking a soccer ball.

These were the ones who had felt most threatened by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and they had risen in force across the country, with a near-record turnout to defeat them.

And now to the chants as the light starts to ebb, and it is mostly young women – who by my count make up 60 per cent of the mob – who lead it.

Fascistes! Racistes!

C’est VOUS, les terrorists!

The drums beat, the cheers ring, and they go hard, to the beat of the drums.

Premier! Deuxieme! Troisieme! Generation! On s’en fou! On est chez nous!

“First! Second! Third! Generation! We don’t care! We are at home!”

As the sun casts a wonderful glow over the whole throbbing Place de la Republique. I swear Marianne herself did a little jig.

Gold, gold, gold for France. It was a privilege to be among them.

If I was a betting man, it feels like this might give some pointers to the election at the end of the year in the US, too. That is, it is one thing for huge swathes of the populace to flirt with the extreme right. But when it comes right down to it, the spectre of actual fascism rallies the rest and they rise in triumph.

A great day for France, and an even better night ahead.

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