It will take a while for a new government to be formed, but there is a fair chance that a clutch of right-wing parties, perhaps led by the Conservatives, who got 21%, will take office.Despite his setback, Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's clever prime minister, who has led a minority government since last year, has refused to resign yet.
And a clever prime minister can put together shifting alliances of different parties.
It has also forced two clever ex-ministers, Ian Taylor and David Curry, into internal exile on the backbench.
Meanwhile, workers who have their careers interrupted by long spells of unemployment which is common enough in France's rigid jobs market will be doubly penalised by not being able to keep up their contributions.Can the government, in the shape of the clever social-affairs minister, François Fillon, and the civil-service minister, Jean-Paul Delevoye, smooth away the objections?
Five years ago Mr Chirac appointed a clever new prime minister of the right, Alain Juppé.
At the time, Cameron said he could not possibly cross that Rubicon, and probably thought his clever cabinet office minister, Oliver Letwin, had got him off the hook by proposing that the regulator be enshrined in a royal charter.
The New York Times ran stories this week about how good we are at resisting strongman populism, and how clever our prime minister is for wearing colourful socks.
Maude's miscalculations gave workers a reason to strike against the whole package of measures, which is not a very clever idea from the minister's point of view and one Tory backbenchers might want to ponder.
But thanks to the Prime Minister's clever maneuver — which is surely what it was — the country has some time to reflect on the consequences of Brexit, which are already turning out to be far more serious than many of the people who voted Leave realized.
While insisting he still has "no idea" what David Cameron stands for, and stressing that Labour may turn out to be equally decent partners in a future centre-left coalition, he describes the prime minister as "clever" and "very, very quick on his feet".
