Alwaght- French voters delivered a heavy blow to France’s far-right Front National, as Marine Le Pen’s extremist party failed to win control of any regions in the final round of local elections.
Despite the anti-Islam party's high score in the first-round when it was ranked as the most popular party in France, an increase in turnout and warnings by the left that racist party would bring France to its knees, stopped Front National translating its huge first-round score of nearly 28% into the overall control of any region.
The Prime Minister, Mr. Valls, hailed the result as a “victory for the Republic” and the “values of fraternity, common sense and togetherness” which had always triumphed in the “darkest moments of our country’s history”.
The hardliner FN candidates – including Ms Le Pen herself in the Calais-Lille-Amiens area in the north, and her 26-year-old niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen in the south-east – were heavily defeated by a combination of left-wing tactical voting and an avalanche of 3.5 million previous non-voters who returned to the polling booths yesterday.
Le Pen has led a drive to detoxify the party and move away from the racist, jackbooted, antisemitic imagery of the past. But the party’s hardline positions on Islam and immigration remain unchanged. Since the Paris terrorist attacks last month, FN’s key concerns – the refugee crisis, security, the place of Islam and national identity – have become the main talking points in France, personally benefiting Le Pen.
The sharp international and domestic reaction to the first-round results – including a warning by Mr. Valls that the rise of the FN could lead to “civil war” in France – mobilized hundreds of thousands first-round abstainers. The turn-out shot up from around 50 per cent in the first round to more than 59 per cent in the second, and was especially high in the three populous regions that the FN had hoped to win.
