“We have the ability to achieve the national unity that the country needs”.
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Front National was expected to perform well in the elections, and has picked up much more support in the last few years, but may have gained even more in the aftermath of the brutal attacks on Paris in November.
PARIS – France’s far-right National Front (FN) stood Monday at the gates of power in several regions after record scores in the first round of elections, held just three weeks after the Paris attacks.
Long content with attracting protest votes, the FN has changed strategy since Marine Le Pen took the party over from her father Jean-Marie in 2011, seeking to build a base of locally elected officials to target the top levels of power. Does that guarantee that the FN will be beaten in the second round? The National Front’s biggest challenge moving forward will be to preserve its anti-establishment appeal after becoming a mainstream party.
In a third region where the National Front came in first and the Socialist Party third, Jean-Pierre Masseret, the left-wing candidate in the Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne – the “East” region – has refused to withdraw.
Mikail said that the result FN got in the elections could be attributed to the low turnout and the possibility of Le Pen’s party to respond to the actual issues such as security and economic situation. Sarkozy first broke with that tradition four years ago and his party insists he won’t budge.
Speaking to The Financial Times, James Shields, professor of French politics at Aston University said “These results are a shock but they shouldn’t be a surprise”.
The Front National is “without contest the first party of France”, Le Pen told supporters Sunday evening.
The Socialists have already called on their candidates who came in third place in battleground seats to withdraw, to enable strategic voting to block the National Front. She also said that she was optimistic about the second round.
“I expect to gain enough momentum in this first round to be optimistic about the second round”, Marine Le Pen said as she cast her vote on Sunday morning.
The next presidential elections in France will be held in 2017.
A grouping of right-wing and center parties took 27 per cent, while the ruling Socialist Party of President Francois Hollande and its allies took 23.5 per cent.
The vote may redraw the political landscape, making French politics a three-way race as it gears up for 2017 presidential elections after decades of domination by the Socialists and conservatives.
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The FN had previously won European Parliament elections in France and local government elections.
