ONE or two pyramidal orchids have popped up in Loubejac, hopefully the roadside verges won’t be cut for a wee while yet (click the image above to enlarge).

CENTRIST Emmanuel Macron has won the French presidency, but now faces the challenge of convincing around a third of the population he is up for the job.

He took 65.68% of the vote (20.2 million) to far-right National Front Le Pen’s 34.32%.

But with a voting population of 47.5 million, Le Pen saw 10.5 million back her, while those who didn’t vote broke through the 25% mark totalling 12 million, and blank or invalid votes came to four million.

Here in Loubéjac, 111 people voted in favour of Macron and 51 supported Le Pen (photo above), but afterwards in the small Café Associatif L’Ecole there was a feeling of trepidation as France stepped forward into the unknown.

Many believed that it was time for change, and that Macron provided hope and support remained strong for the EU.

But you also felt that it had to work this time and that it would take all parties to pull together to ensure that Le Pen and other far-right tendencies didn’t gain strength from the number of votes received, but also abstentions.

Macron and France now moves on to creating a parliament with the French legislative elections taking place on June 11 and June 18.

Full results of the presidential elections from communes across France are available here.

Related: First round – Loubejac, and France, steps into the unknown

FRANCE is in the final straight of the race to be the next president of the Cinquième République, as the second round vote takes place on Sunday.

And it is quite a race as this morning France is still wiping itself down after a fierce TV debate between centrist Emmanuel Macron and the the far-right Front National candidate Marine Le Pen.

A two-and-a-half hour debate on BFMTV saw the two trade insults, with Macron claiming Le Pen was a parasite on the political system, and Le Pen claiming France will be ruled by a woman from Monday – either her or Angela Merkel.

Overall the polls have barely budged since the first round vote on the 23 April, with Emmanuel Macron expected to receive around 60% of the vote to Le Pen’s 40%.

Macron supporters are fearful that a poor turnout, or people deciding to spoil their ballot papers, could see Le Pen gain victory, but at the moment voting numbers are expected to be near normal.

Here in the south of the Dordogne, the new posters featuring Macron and Le Pen are being glued to the presentation boards outside mairies before Sunday’s vote.

While at the salles des fêtes in Loubéjac, the Café Associatif L’Ecole wil be open on Sunday throughout the day and many will be there to witness the result of the commune’s vote from 19h, and the announcement of the overall winner an hour or so later.

THERE was an air of confidence from Italian chestnut producers who have beaten a cynip insect infestation of their crop, as they explained how during a conference on the future of the industry in the Dordogne.

Renzo Panzacchi had come from Bologna to speak at the Printemps de la Châtaigne industry exhibition held in Mazeyrolles, that looked at ways to expand and support the chestnut sector.

He spent around 20 minutes explaining how their own region’s chestnut producers had faced the threat of the cynip, a small wasp-like insect, that was slowly killing the trees and causing great distress amongst 100 or so farms.

The chestnut growers of Bologne were made up of many small farms, but it was still an industry that brought around €2,500,000 to the area each year, and so it was decided to fight back against the cynip, and they looked to Asia for a solution.

The original cynip infestation was traced to imports of horticultural material from China, and further study showed that the problem had been dealt with in Japan in the 1980s.

This was achieved through the introduction of another insect, the Torymus sinensis, which feeds on the cynip whilst in galls found on the chestnut and when properly managed can eventually reduced the damage to the trees.

The small red and green galls can be seen forming on this chestnut tree in Loubéjac.

And that damage can be severe as Renzo Panzacchi described seeing 25 galls spread along just 20 cm of chestnut tree branch. While a producer in France explained earlier in the morning how his own production was reduced by more than half, despite doubling the number of hectares under production.

Renzo Panzacchi continued and said that working with university and ministry of agriculture researchers the local producers began to introduce the Torymus sinensis after setting up a system across the region that slowly saw their presence spread naturally.

After five years the patience and determination of the Bologna chestnut farmers was rewarded as they saw the cynip population decline, yet retained a balance with the Torymus sinensis, and saw their production levels back to around 95% of what they were before the arrival of the cynip.

The cynip can be beaten, Renzo Panzacchi said, without turning to chemicals and if the industry works as one.

See the full presentation from Renzo Panzacchi below (click on the slides to advance).

MAMMATUS cloud formed over Loubéjac after a period of storms and heavy rain rattled across the countryside this weekend. And here is some background from Wikipedia.