Polling agency projections showed the Republican candidate won.
Advertisement
A nationalist not affiliated with a major party won Corsica.
Final official results were expected Monday.
The FN made a historic showing in regional elections on Sunday.
Yet, punctuating that collective sigh of relief is the fact that neither President François Hollande nor former president Nicolas Sarkozy can rejoice. Turnout rose sharply from the first round, suggesting that many voters wanted to prevent the once-pariah National Front from gaining power. The party bash’s support is growing.
“We can no longer continue like this”.
Marine Le Pen blamed such scare tactics and a political system that tries to lock out “patriots” for the party’s losses.
Valls said the results in Sunday’s runoff elections are “not a message of victory”. He noted that France knows how to maintain its values in the moment of truth.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen faced sharp criticism on Wednesday after tweeting a graphic image of an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) beheading in response to a TV journalist who likened her National Front party to the militant group.
Le Pen was charged in July 2014 after her immunity as a member of the European Parliament was lifted following a vote requested by French authorities.
“Nothing will be able to stop us”, she said in a speech after the vote.
“By tripling our number of councillors, we will be the main opposition force in most of the regions of France”.
She celebrated the “total eradication” of the left, who had controlled all but one of France’s regions before this vote and were projected to lose several.
Marine Le Pen, who made the comments on the campaign trail in 2010, was acquitted by a French court.
Le Pen’s supporters booed Bertrand’s remarks being shown on a big screen at party offices.
The party received 6.8 million votes in the second round, amounting to a 27.36% share of the vote.
Le Pen had accused the government of being behind the five-year-old charges that saw her brought to trial just weeks before the regional poll.
Similarly, Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, was on the tail following Christian Estrosi, her opponent in the south of France in southern Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur. But on Sunday, the party has tried to achieve the highest votes to gain advantage over the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, which borders Belgium and the English Channel.
Advertisement
Le Pen’s NFP was leading in the first round of voting in six of the 13 regions. Conservative Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi was projected to win about 55 per cent.
