The two movements that culminated in this week’s presidential elections could hardly seem, from the outside, more different.

In France, a populist wave brought the far-right National Front, and its anti-immigrant nationalism, short of victory but closer than ever before, with one-third of the national vote.

In South Korea, outraged protesters helped prompt the impeachment of the center-right president, Park Geun-hye, over corruption charges and the election on Tuesday of Moon Jae-in, who will become one of the few left-leaning leaders in the country’s history.

One movement is solidly right-wing, skeptical of institutions from the European Union to the news media and soaked in the politics of division. The other is left-wing but less categorically so, embraces institutions like those that oversaw Ms. Park, and seeks to bridge social divides.