Financial markets went into France's Sunday election bracing for a good old-fashioned freakout — but the results from the first round of voting were too confusing to trigger a selloff. On the contrary, initial reactions on Monday suggested a measure of relief, with stocks jumping and the euro recovering as some of the nightmare scenarios contemplated ahead of the poll faded. On Sunday, as expected, the hard-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella emerged as the strongest force from the first of two rounds of voting, gaining some 34 percent of the nationwide vote. The ad hoc alliance of ... (full story)