The rise of the Front National could lead to civil war in France, Prime Minister Manuel Valls has warned, ahead of the second round of regional elections on Sunday that could bring real power to the far-Right party.
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Recent polls had Le Pen trailing her center-right rival in the traditionally Socialist northern region known as Nord-Pas-De-Calais-Picardie, where the National Front won more than 40 percent of the vote in the first round. But it faces an uphill battle to convert that win after the ruling Socialist Party withdrew its candidates from two regions and urged its supporters there to back Mr Nicolas Sarkozy’s Republicans.
Her niece Marion Marechal-Le-Pen likewise topped the vote in a key southeastern region that includes the Riviera coast called Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur (PACA).
The first round of the regional elections in France, held on December 6, confirmed the National Front’s position as France’s most popular party.
The far right has been steadily gaining votes over the past few years from both left- and right-wing sympathisers through a mix of nationalist and pro-welfare policies, correspondents say.
She is the youngest lawmaker that is French and in an election this weekend could become the youngest president of an area that is strong.
It’s still some time until France goes to the polls for a genuinely important national election, and Le Pen will be disadvantaged by the electoral system.
The councils that run France’s 13 “super-regions”, created by Hollande from 22 smaller ones, can not pass laws of their own. Two polls released Wednesday showed both Le Pens losing their races, meaning they have just days to redouble their efforts. “This division may lead to civil war, and there is another vision which is that of the Republic and its values, which are for unity”.
“The keyword will be ‘pragmatism, ‘ not ‘ideology, ‘” Marine Le Pen told a last campaign rally on Thursday evening after opinion polls showed her party’s prospects have waned since the first round and that tactical voting could keep it out of power in its key target regions. Dishing out that message, she has vowed that as head of her southern region, she would cut funds to planned parenthood groups and associations representing Muslims.
The Socialists have pulled out their candidates in the regions where Le Pen and her niece are running and called on voters to back the opposition, a risky tactic as it plays into the far-right’s claim that the two main parties are indistinguishable.
“Let me remind the prime minister that the war being waged against France today is being waged by Islamist fundamentalists bottle-fed by a laxist, sectarian Socialist Party”, she said. He has been ostracized by daughter Marine in a family feud that at one point risked fracturing the party.
“She has proved she can convince…” The crowd whooped when Marechal-Le Pen took the stage – and spontaneously erupted in a “Happy Birthday” song for her.
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Vallaud-Belkacem said she feared debates over school canteen food would resurface – with the issue of whether alternatives should be offered when pork is on the menu – and anxious FN-led regions could discriminate against non-French children.
