She hailed the “total eradication” of the Socialist Party representation in the southeast and the northern regions that the tactical vote produced.
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But he too hinted at the need to take the National Front vote share seriously. He notes security concerns, frustration with European unity, and unemployment – all issues that the National Front’s Marine Le Pen has used to rally support.
“Nothing can stop us”. Election after election, the rise of the nationalist tide is inescapable.
The ruling Socialists of President François Hollande appeared to have fared better than expected, taking five regions, while the opposition centre-Right took seven, including the Paris region for the first time since 1997.
But it typically struggles within the second spherical of elections as mainstream voters gang as much as maintain it from energy it misplaced 535 of 538 second-spherical duels with the Republicans in native elections this yr.
‘We are proud…of the results, ‘ he told supporters tonight. “That party has been portraying Muslims as a whole as a problem, immigrants as a threat”.
Valls said the results in Sunday’s runoff elections are “not a message of victory”.
Some 23 million voters headed to the polls for the second round Sunday – 7 percent more than the first round, when the National Front led in six of France’s 13 regions.
Both Ms Le Pen and niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen lost out in their respective regions, pollsters said.
But analysts cautioned that it would be a mistake to discount the party, which has cemented its position in the French political mainstream with steady electoral gains since Le Pen took the helm from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011.
The result, if confirmed, would be a major disappointment for Le Pen and her anti-immigration FN.
Le Pen had been counting on winning control of some regions this time around to show that her party was fit to govern in the run-up to the next presidential election.
Indeed, the day kicked off the unofficial election season as politicians from all parties cast Sunday’s results in terms of their presidential ambitions.
Candidates have tried to lure to the ballot box the almost 50 per cent of those who failed to vote in the 6 December first round, and those votes appeared to have been decisive.
French voters have a reputation of blocking the FN at the last moment.
In order to keep the far-right out of power, the Socialists urged their supporters to back Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives in the constituencies where the far-rights were well placed to win. All parties have been trying to lure them in.
Fifteen years later, if Marine Le Pen makes the second round, it will not be a shock and she is likely to seriously narrow the gap.
The vote has been viewed as key for all three 2017 hopefuls: Ms Le Pen, Socialist President Francois Hollande, and former president Mr Sarkozy. She denounced “this giant campaign of insults, slander, fear” by her rivals during a bitter campaign. FN party leaders have consistently linked terrorism with immigration.
The governing Socialists ordered their candidates to withdraw from the regions where Le Pen and Marechal-Le Pen were running and to vote for the right to block their candidacies.
In fact, we’ve probably just seen a pre-run of the presidential elections in 2017.
Despite efforts by Marine to soften the party’s image, it is still associated with its racist and anti-Semitic roots. “History will show that it was here and now, in our region, that her rise was halted”, he said.
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The FN had taken 28 per cent of the vote nationally in the first round, ahead of 27 per cent for the Republicans and their allies.
