FN leader Marine Le Pen and her 25-year-old niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen broke the 40-percent mark in their respective regions, shattering previous records for the party as they tapped into voter anger over a stagnant economy and security fears linked to Europe’s refugee crisis.
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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.
Former French President and current French right-wing opposition “Les Republicains” party leader Nicolas Sarkozy, center, and former first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy arrive at a polling station in Paris before voting as part of the first round of the regional elections, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015. The presidential elections are in 2017, not far away.
Christopher Castaner, the Socialist who was forced to step down in Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur in order to dent the younger Le Pen’s chances, said he made the move “with a heavy heart”.
By removing underperforming candidates from contention, the Socialists hope that their supporters will switch their votes to Sarkozy’s party and block Le Pen’s FN from winning in the key regions.
But his Socialist Party has languished behind the FN and the centre-right Republicans.
Even UKIP leader Nigel Farage has previously ruled out working with Le Pen, accusing her party of “anti-Semitism and general prejudice”.
A win for either by a party long seen as a pariah would be unprecedented in France. We must reclaim our national borders permanently and rescind French citizenship to dual-national jihadists because they do not deserve to be considered French.
“A lot of people associate immigrants with terrorism, so the fact that she wants to have less immigrants appeals to a lot of people”, says Paris-based journalist Stefan De Vries.
Voters are choosing leadership councils for the regions, and had the choice of several parties in the first round. “The national movement is now the largest party in France, while it is barely represented in parliament”, Marine Le Pen told TF1 TV channel.
The party’s historic results in Sunday’s first round of regional elections were the latest in a series of electoral inroads, with scores that shamed and destabilized the traditional parties.
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“We’re not home and dry yet, especially since the election is being run in an unfair way”, she said on French radio RTL.
