The rightwing party’s surge came as no surprise in the French countryside. Young voters in particular feel ignored and left out

In the pretty Burgundy town of Toucy, the farmers’ market is in full swing, to the strains of an accordionist playing My Way. On the terrace of Le Bistrot de l’Atelier, three young men explain why they will probably be voting for the Front National in the second round of regional elections on Sunday.

For them, it is not really about terrorism or migrants or crime; it is about alienation, unemployment and a profound sense of disillusion.

“What happens in Paris and what happens here is like two different worlds,” says Laurent Choubard, 22. “And here, we feel that we are being ignored, forgotten. People talk about climate change and the environment, but nobody cares about the countryside.”

It is, he says, a double whammy. “There are no jobs, but you can’t start your own business because there’s little investment in public transport and communications like mobile phone and internet networks. It’s a second-class zone.”

Vidal Guillaume, also 22, gives another example: “If you haven’t got a car you can’t work, but many young people can’t afford driving lessons or a car. At least the FN gives the idea that they are concerned by what is happening. They are present in the countryside. They seem to care about us. I say, let’s give them a go.”

At the next table Helga Prot, 64, who is retired and moved to Toucy seven years ago, said she was not an FN voter, but understood why others were: “People are fed up with the left and the right. Jobs are scarce here, pensions are not going up, and things are more and more expensive. It’s sad but true.”

Toucy has seen some battles in its time. In the Middle Ages it was on the side of the king of France and was destroyed by the dukes of Burgundy and the English. Joan of Arc is said to have passed through the town in 1429.

It escaped being razed a second time in 1789 by embracing the French revolution, but part of the old town was destroyed by German bombs in June 1940. Today Toucy, population 2,628, is at the heart of another struggle, one that has seen up to 55% of voters in this largely rural region backing the far-right Front National.

As the FN, led by Marine Le Pen, heads into the second round of regional elections today – the last vote before the 2017 presidential poll – her party’s shock first-round score has left the country’s political future hanging in the balance: either the FN will lose and the mainstream parties’ panic will become a political damp squib, or the FN will win control of one or two of France’s regions and become a considerable force in the Gallic corridors of power.

Toucy is in the Yonne, named after a tributary of the Seine, and neither it nor Burgundy is a traditional FN heartland. Burgundy is famous for meandering rivers, gentle hills, forests and natural parks – and for snails, boeuf bourguignon, beaujolais and chablis. Summers are warm and winters are cold, but nothing is especially extreme.

Today, however, the region is a rare triangulaire – a three-way contest between the FN, Les Républicains (LR) and the Parti Socialiste (PS). In the electoral first round the FN polled 31.48%, the centrist UDI-LR 24% and the PS 22.99%. In Toucy the FN won 37.88% of the vote.

In the small villages around Toucy, up to 55% of local voters voted for Le Pen’s party in the first round.

Bruno Bernard, a political adviser and speechwriter, says since 1981 French voters, especially in rural areas, feel increasingly forgotten by the country’s leaders: “They have been more and more disillusioned by politics and politicians to the point of feeling they are completely left out.”

Jean-Yves Camus, a political researcher and FN expert at the Paris-based Institute of International Strategic Research (IRIS), agrees. He told the Observer: “There have always been two Frances. Paris and other big cities, where there is multiculturalism, and the rest of France.”

As well as the media, Camus blames an electoral and administrative system that favours the political – and physical – centre for the current FN hysteria. “Take a village like Vesoul [eastern France], whose car factories employ a lot of Turks and Moroccans, and where the FN vote has grown. I found this hard to understand until I saw a report on local television about a gang of north Africans coming down the motorway from Paris to siphon off diesel from farms at night.”

This, he said, played to the classic rural fears – crime, delinquency, the big city exporting immigration – and had an instant effect, “even in places like the wine-growing areas where people are relatively prosperous”.

South of Toucy, the village of Champallement has a population of 47, including British, German and Dutch people: here, 26 people turned out to vote last Sunday and 12 of them voted FN. Louis Riuné, 66, a retired salesman, said that he was not one of them, but he believed local people were fed up with Parisian politicians “who never come anywhere near here”.

“We’ve had years of the right in power and the left in power and nothing has got better, so people are saying ‘Let’s see what the FN can do.’ There’s a lot of scaremongering, but it’s wrong to call them extremists. The idea that Marine Le Pen could take power and do whatever she wanted is ridiculous.

“We feel like poor relations. Parisians and our leaders don’t understand the countryside and its traditions. There are no jobs, so youngsters are leaving. We feel we’ve been dropped by the political elite and are being left to die slowly.”

At a rally in Paris on Thursday evening, several hundred supporters welcomed the FN regional candidates with cheers and applause. Many of those who booed and hissed at the mentions of rival candidates were young, some too young even to vote.

Mathieu Latrille de Lorencez, 17, spoke of the FN with passion: “It’s really the only party that has a credible project for France. I agree with its programme on everything – the economy, Europe, immigration – and I think it speaks for all communities of France.”

Frédéric Pierret, 21, a political science student from the Auvergne in south-central France, said he had previously supported the centre-right UMP party (now Les Républicains) but was won over by the FN’s values: “I’m very patriotic. I come from a small village and I adore my country. In the countryside, people feel abandoned and afraid. The FN seems the only solution.”

Louis, 18, a political science student from Normandy, said he felt the FN was the only future for young people: “It’s the only party that has a real interest in the whole of France – not just Paris but the rural areas, too.”

Back in the Yonne, Julien Odoul, a former male model who is now Marine Le Pen’s special adviser, was campaigning in the ancient town of Sens, where he heads the local FN. “The countryside may appear to have fewer problems than cities, but urban problems, like crime and delinquency, are catching them up. And unemployment in some areas is catastrophic. The real split is the sense of exclusion. We in the rural regions feel excluded and forgotten.”

Camus says he can see in last Sunday’s election results the gradual rise of the FN, but no great revolution: “I think we have to be modest and say we don’t know where it will end. I don’t believe it will end in victory for the FN on Sunday.

“But this is what often happens: we ignore the FN between elections and wake up to headlines that they are at the gates of power the day before the second-round vote. We have to wake up to the fact that 80% of French people feel abandoned by the main parties – and that’s not just those living in the country.

“There is also a rather cultish side of this: only Marine Le Pen and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen have any kind of strong charisma. I can see the FN being in the second round of the presidential elections in 2017, but I can’t see it winning the second round.”

Maybe not. But the party seems to be winning the battle for much of the French countryside.