Winning two regions or more would be a breakthrough for the party, 18 months before the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2017.
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The National Front won 27.73% of the vote, the Republicans and its allies 26.65% and the Socialists 23.12%, according to official first round polling figures.
Support for the far-right party, which has a strong anti-immigration platform, seemed to rise in reaction to Europe’s refugee crisis and the terror attacks that claimed 130 lives in Paris on November 13.
If we fail, Islamist totalitarianism will take power in our country.
If traditional parties refuse to join forces against them, analysts predict the FN could take all three regions on December 13, when voters return to the polls to pick from the top two parties of the first round.
Marine Le Pen she speaks after hearing the results of the first round of the regional elections on Saturday.
France’s far-right National Front is on course for an unprecedented victory in the first round of regional elections, dealing an electoral blow to President Francois Hollande three weeks after terrorist attacks in Paris.
Le Pen senior was thwarted in his bid for the presidency in 2002 when the Socialist Party used a similar tactic to the one they deployed on Monday.
Jean-Marie Le Pen has been several times convicted for racism and anti-Semitism.
The final result will be decided in a second-round vote on Sunday. Jean-Pierre Masseret said he could not be expected to leave 5.5 million people in the hands of a Republican party that had veered to the extreme or an extreme nationalist right.
Le Pen and her telegenic niece broke the symbolic 40-percent barrier in their respective regions of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie and Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, which includes the cities of Marseille and Nice.
The Times added that with all of the votes counted, turnout nationwide was approximately 50%, which is somewhat higher than the percentage of voters who came out during the last regional election in 2010.
France’s National Front political party leader Marine Le Pen delivers a speech during the National Front political party summer university in Marseille, France, September 6, 2015.
The PS candidate in a third region, Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in eastern France, rejected a call from party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis to withdraw in the second round.
Under French regional election rules, all candidates with more than 10% are eligible for next Sunday’s second round.
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The FN – whose leaders have repeatedly linked immigration with terrorism – has been climbing in the polls since the gun and suicide bombing attacks in Paris.
