M. Thiers has addressed the following Circular to the Departements:-

It is now nationwide except for a few departements in the northeast & a couple in the southwest.

Hollande's Socialist party limped in third and was set to lose half of the 61 departements it held before the election.

The fifth largest of France's departements, Aveyron is also one the most sparsely populated, with less than 300,000 inhabitants.

But that still represents less than 2 percent of the total and the FN did not manage to win control of any of the departements.

It will also require operators to cover 90 percent of the population in each of the 96 departements of mainland France within 12 years.