France’s far-right National Front (FN) pulled off a historic win on Sunday, topping the vote in the first round of regional elections.
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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.
The regional vote was the first electoral test for Hollande since the Paris attacks that killed 130 and prompted his attempts to marshal a united front against Islamic State.
If we fail, Islamist totalitarianism will take power in our country.
The governing Socialists, trailing in third place, announced that its candidates in those two regions would withdraw from the December 13 final round so that its voters could help the rival conservative right – and prevent far-right victories.
French far-right political party National Front Marine Le Pen (centre) leaves a polling station in Henin-Beaumont, France, on Sunday.
Cosse said the party supporters should vote for the Republican candidates Christian Estrosi in the Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur southeastern region and Xavier Bertrand in the northern Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region.
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.
Marine Le Pen has distanced the FN from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded it and has been prosecuted for anti-Semitism.
After her anti-immigration party’s strong showing, the main parties on the right and left must decide whether to strike an agreement to try to block the FN.
The far-right, anti-establishment National Front has ridden a wave of anger over migration and extremist attacks straight into the political mainstream – where experts predict it will stay.
Any party which secures 10 percent backing in the first round can field candidates next Sunday. She also said that she was optimistic about the second round.
While Le Pen’s party holds sizable leads now, that may change during the second round of voting next Sunday.
In a series of interviews she condemned the PS for withdrawing some candidates from the second round, saying the PS was “neither loyal nor democratic” and was “treating its voters like ballot fodder”.
While it won 11.42 percent of the vote in the first round of the last regional elections in 2010, it got 25.25 percent in the first round of elections to the smaller departments in March. Marine Le Pen she speaks after hearing the outcomes of the 1st spherical of the regional elections on Saturday.
[The elections] are the last occasion to gauge the mind of the population before the 2017 Presidential and General elections.
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The FN – whose leaders have repeatedly linked immigration with terrorism – has been climbing in the polls since the carnage in Paris.
