France’s Socialist Party on Monday said its candidates would fall on their swords in three regions to try and prevent the far-Right Front National from clinching historic electoral victories next Sunday.
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Jean-Marie Le Pen, the co-founder and former leader of the party, celebrated the party’s ” historical” achievements in the elections Sunday by tweeting a video of Conservative party candidate Christian Estrosi wearing a skullcap and dancing with Jewish men.
Le Pen’s party is ahead in six of metropolitan France’s 13 departments after the first round vote, requiring some painful political decisions from the PS, which came third, and LR, which came second but failed to win the support it expected. Nicolas Sarkozy’s Les Républicains was second by gaining 29 percent of votes and the ruling François Hollande’s Socialists and leftwing allies was third party by gaining 23.3 percent of vote.
Appearing before her supporters, Ms. Le Pen called it a “magnificent” result, saying the National Front was “the only party that can reconquer the lost territories of the republic, of Calais, where we won 50 percent of the votes, or of the suburbs”.
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, who is standing in the Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur region for the FN, at the results on Sunday.
The Socialists have pledged to withdraw their candidate from the Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardy region where they came third to Ms Le Pen. First of all, let’s not forget that turnout on these regional elections was slightly over 50 percent.
The National Front’s anti-immigrant stance has resonated in a country shaken by the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris, in which extremists killed 130 people and wounded more than 300 others.
With no party collecting half of the votes, run-offs will be held on Sunday. She also said that she was optimistic about the second round.
Following the attacks, Le Pen also accused Hollande of a lack patriotism, and of failing to protect France with his government’s policies on immigration.
She said: “We are not a land of Islam”.
These two regions could fall to the FN in the December 13 second round.
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“Today, they’re twisting the arm of the French, of the Left”.
