PARIS — For the past year, a pressing political question has been whether widespread public frustration against Western political establishments had morphed into a global populist movement.

Britain’s vote to leave the European Union last June, followed by the presidential election of Donald Trump in the United States, created the impression of a mounting wave.

But in France at least that question has been answered when Ms Marine Le Pen, stalwart of the European far right, failed to “undemonise” herself and her party, the National Front, during the course of her campaign.

She knew that she would always be a minority candidate as long as she reminded the French of the four years of far-right rule during World War II, a process known as “undemonisation” — a term suggesting the demons still associated with her party.

But Ms Le Pen’s challenge was different because French history is different.

She has spent the past six years as president of the National Front single-mindedly focused on one objective: Erasing the stain of her party’s association with the ex-collaborationists, the right-wing extremists, immigrant-hating racists and anti-Semites who founded it 45 years ago.

She also failed decisively in last week’s debate with centrist Mr Emmanuel Macron, who leads new party En Marche, where analysts said she effectively “redemonised” herself and the party. The debate was one of the campaign’s critical moments.

It was an hours-long tirade against Mr Macron laced with name-calling and epithets, and woefully deficient in substance. Ms Le Pen appeared lost on subject after subject, fumbling on one of her signature issues — withdrawing from the euro — that was opposed by a majority of French.

Something essential about Ms Le Pen, and the National Front, had been revealed to France.

Mr Macron, on the other hand, demonstrated a quality that French voters, unlike many Anglo-Saxon ones, have long found essential in their successful candidates: Cool mastery of the critical issues confronting the country. Where Ms Le Pen repeatedly lost herself in the weeds, Mr Macron sailed right through them.

There were ingrained fears and contempt that a majority of French still feel towards Ms Le Pen and her party. “There was no choice. I couldn’t vote for Le Pen. You’re not going to vote for the extremist,” said Mr Martine Nurit, 52, a small-restaurant owner, who voted in Paris’s 20th Arrondissement on Sunday.

In a party where the Le Pen family as always called the shots, Ms Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, and her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a rising star and National Front lawmaker, said her campaign had not been convincing enough and had been undermined by its position on the Euro.

“It is the problems of the euro, of Europe, of pensions which have dragged down the campaign of Madame Le Pen, I think,” said Mr Le Pen, who was expelled from the party in 2015.

A majority of voters oppose ditching the euro, which is at the heart of the party’s economic programme. While Ms Le Pen in the last days of the campaign appeared to soften her position on its timetable, Ms Marechal-Le Pen said that came too late.“There are clearly lessons to be learnt,” she said on France 2 television.

Indeed, even as Ms Le Pen was soundly defeated, she still managed a showing that not too long ago would have been unthinkable.

And in her concession, she made it clear she was already looking towards the parliamentary elections, and the future. AGENCIES