Eurotunnel rebels drew their support from right-wing areas

The Rebel group which ousted the board of Eurotunnel last month drew most of its support from areas of France where the National Front is strongest, it has emerged.

A geographic breakdown of voting patterns, published on the website of the rebel leader Nicholas Miguet, shows that shareholder backing for his campaign was greatest in regions where the right-wing party is most prominent. Support was particularly strong in the south of France in cities such as Marseille where the National Front has a high profile.

M Miguet, a share tipster, one time presidential candidate and convicted fraudster, unseated the Eurotunnel board with the support of only 2.5 per cent of the company's 1.2 million small shareholders. The vote was swung by just 30,000 French investors who between them own 18 per cent of the company.

Many of his supporters only bought their shares in the last year since M Miguet began to agitate for change. The French stock market authorities are conducting an investigation into allegations of share price manipulation by M Miguet.

Charles Mackay, the former chairman of Eurotunnel, said: "We should have responded to the attacks from M Miguet earlier. But the advice we got was that we shouldn't dignify his attacks by responding."

Mr Mackay also said that the small number of shareholders who voted for M Miguet proved that it had not been "a mass movement of widows and orphans" which had ousted him and his fellow directors.

The new all-French board installed by M Miguet is chaired by Jacques Maillot, the founder of the leisure group Nouvelles Frontieres. Mr Maillot is understood not to share M Miguet's political views.

The board has indicated that it is likely to adopt large elements of the Project Galaxie financial restructuring plan put together by the previous board and its advisers. This envisaged cutting Eurotunnel's £6.4bn debt and slashing access charges for passenger and freight railway operators. The debt reduction would have been achieved by selling shares to the two railway operators, SNCF and London & Continental Railways, the state-backed company building the high-speed rail link from Folkestone to London's St Pancras.

Eurotunnel would also have refinanced some of its debt at cheaper prices and issued bonds securitised against future revenue streams and guaranteed by the railway operators. The effect would have been to cut annual interest payments by around £100m and increase net revenues by about £60m-£70m.

There are doubts whether the new board will be able to sell a similar deal to the UK and French governments and Eurotunnel's banks, with some former directors believing that substitution of the management by its lenders is inevitable.