Sunday’s voting was only a first round, and the big question for the December 13 runoff is whether supporters of Republican, Socialist, and smaller candidates will rally together to keep the National Front from winning control of any of France’s 13 newly drawn regions.
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The FN won 28 percent of the vote, ahead of the centre-right Republican party of Nicolas Sarkozy, who polled 27 percent.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is attributing her party’s historic gains in first-round regional elections to a people’s revolt against the political elite.
The unpopular Socialist president, François Hollande, has seen his approval ratings jump since the Paris attacks, as he intensified French airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq and ordered a state of emergency at home.
French voters took to the polls Sunday in the first election since the attacks, after national security dominated the runup to the vote. The momentum that the party is now building seems destined to improve those results significantly-even before this weekend’s regional election victory, Marine Le Pen has consistently placed first or second place in the polls for France’s next president.
The far-right success triggered an immediate debate among the mainstream parties as to whether, in regions where they trailed third, they should urge voters to back the candidate opposing the FN.
The entrance of the exploits of IS and hundreds of tens of thousands of migrants in Europe, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris assaults, have strengthened the discussion of the National Front.
He pointed out that though fears of terrorism played a part in motivating voters to cast their ballot for the hardline anti-immigrant party, the National Front has been gaining ground for four years, fueled by concerns over economic and social issues.
Marion Marechal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and nice of Marine, scored above 40 per cent in early estimates for the vast Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur region, placing her on course for a win next week.
In the first national vote since Islamic State group terrorists killed 130 people in a wave of attacks across Paris on November 13, the FN looked set to come first in at least six out of 13 regions, according to exit polls. “The national movement is now the largest party in France, while it is barely represented in parliament”, Le Pen told TF1 TV channel. The presidential elections are in 2017, not far away.
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“People of the left, one more time the Republic depends on you”.
