French voters dealt a sharp setback to the far-right National Front (FN) in regional elections, depriving the party of victory in any of the country’s 13 regions, an outcome which its leader Marine Le Pen blamed on tactical voting.
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National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who had appeared to be on the cusp of winning the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, lost out to center-right candidate Xavier Bertrand, who won 56% of the vote to her 44%.
On Friday, Fitch Ratings affirmed France’s credit rating at AA, with a stable outlook, noting that it “does not expect the December regional and 2017 presidential elections to derail reform or fiscal plans for 2016-17”.
This means that the party has been beaten into third place, despite leading in six of 13 regions in the first round of voting. Turnout rose sharply from the first round, suggesting that many voters wanted to prevent the once-pariah National Front from gaining power. As Stratfor wrote after the first round, many voters who supported moderate forces in the first round will probably support other parties to keep the National Front from winning again. Parties and coalitions with at least 10 percent of the votes can enter the second round, which made a three-way race between the Socialist Party, Republicans and FN in most of the regions.
Marine Le Pen blamed such scare tactics and a political system that tries to lock out “patriots” for the party’s losses.
All in all, the conservatives took the Socialists five, seven areas, while Corsica went to average nationalists.
Jérôme Fourquet, a polling expert, noted that the “Republican front was effective, as a big proportion of the left’s voters voted for the right”, meaning Sarkozy’s party. “The danger of the far right has not been removed – far from it – and I won’t forget the results of the first round and of past elections”.
Although it won no region on Sunday after the Socialists pulled out of its key target regions and urged their supporters to back the conservatives of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, the FN still recorded its best showing in its history. After the Paris attack last month Marine Le Pen said, “Islamist fundamentalism must be annihilated, France must ban Islamist organisations, close radical mosques and expel foreigners who preach hatred in our country as well as illegal migrants who have nothing to do here”.
For Parisian Michel Chaput, the National Front’s failure to take a single region was less political than emotional.
In past, anti-EU politicians like UKIP’s Nigel Farage have refused to form pan-European alliance with Front National, mainly due to the dark shadow cast our the party by its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. The National Front has for decades been a thorn in the side of the French political class, the kingmaker in vote after vote. Even if a lot of people voted (for the National Front).
Despite the FN failing to grab its first region, Ms. Le Pen will still use her party’s first round breakthrough performance as a springboard for her bid for the 2017 presidential election.
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This is the first regional election since a reform that reduced the number of regions in mainland France from 22 to 13.
