Yeah french presidents have been able to get elected in those “best of two” presidential elections (you vote twice, the second round is the top two from the first, so very easy to manipulate) by helping the far right getting into the second place (started with Chirac or even earlier) so you only have one reasonable choice (Democracy vs not).
People got fed up with it, got numb to it, and also the far right have become more of a populistic party too (on the outside at least).
It doesn’t help Macron seems to believe he’s some sort of rightful heir after those shenanigans too and just brutally impose what he wants without taking into account what the people want (there have been massive strikes and protests, even by french standards, to absolutely no avail).