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The French system is not entirely unlike first past the post, in that you only need to top the list in round two to get a 'bonus' and quite a hefty one at that.
The system also encourages tactical voting because after the first round you get a very accurate and obvious 'opinion poll' for round 2 if appropriate.
And there is nothing wrong with tactical voting is there? If you didn't vote FN in round one you are probably not going to do so in round two, so naturally if you strongly oppose them you may be tempted to use your vote to stop them. Front National, like it or not, are a divisive element and so they will attract strong opinion one way or the other. It is interesting to note that they also did badly in regions where a party list was not tactically withdrawn.