“By tripling the number of regional councilors, the National Front will become the first opposition party in most of the regional councils in France, a constructive and creative opposition”, Le Pen said addressing supporters of the party after elections.
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Le Pen is riding high after extremist attacks and Europe’s migrant crisis, and the party came out on top in six of France’s 13 newly drawn regions a week ago.
The National Front had been successful in the first round based in part on its anti-immigrant stance and in the wake of the Paris attacks.
According to the party leader, the election results have one more time demonstrated the current political situation in the country, dividing everyone into National Front supporters and their opponents.
The Socialists pulled their party out of both races and it appears that many voters cast ballots to prevent the once-pariah National Front from gaining power.
“It’s not the left and the right anymore, its globalists and patriots”, Ms. Le Pen said.
The run-offs will be key for all three front-runners for the 2017 presidential elections, Socialist President Francois Hollande, ex-president Sarkozy and Le Pen.
Le Pen struck an upbeat tone despite the rout, pledging to keep fighting to expand support for her party.
The failure of Marine Le Pen’s National Front to win a single region in the runoffs puts an end – at least for the moment – to any talk of her becoming president of France.
According to the preliminary results, Sarkozy’s The Republicans (former UMP) won 57 percent of the vote in the north-east region, while Marine Le Pen, who was running, received 42 percent. “History will remember that this is where we stopped the progression of the National Front”. The results were met with boos and shouts of disgust and disappointment at the election headquarters of Marine Le pen in Henin-Beaumont in northern France.
Early results had the governing Socialists winning four to five regions, with the mainstream conservative Republicans perhaps taking the rest, including Paris.
Marie-Madeleine Tanguy, 80, a Paris retiree who lives across the street from the Bataclan club that was the scene of the worst massacre November 13, said she voted for the Socialist candidate even if her trust in the party has eroded.
In the southeast, her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen was beaten by the conservative Christian Estrosi with a big difference, 53.5 percent versus 46.5 percent.
“I thank the voters for protecting our lovely region”, said Xavier Bertrand, The Republicans’ main candidate in Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie.
She noted that the FN’s score in the second round of regional elections rose from 9.17 per cent in 2010 to 30 per cent on Sunday, “confirming as European Union and departmental elections showed the inexorable rise of the FN, election after election”.
“We mustn’t confuse regional elections fought on a different system with National Assembly elections where the FN has no chance at all of coming to power in the foreseeable future”, said Jim Shields, head of French studies at Aston University in Birmingham, England. In the meantime, Marine Le-Pen will be regrouping in preparation for the presidential elections in 18 months time.
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French voters go to the polls in the second round of regional elections that will show whether the far-right National Front can turn popularity into power.
