Front National win could lead to civil war, warns French PM

The ultra-nationalist FN, which wants to suspend immigration and pull France out of the euro, topped the vote in six of 13 regions in the first round of voting last weekend, confirming its status as France’s most popular party.

Much attention will also be focused on the northeast Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine region, where the Socialist candidate rejected his party’s call to drop out of the run-offs. The same was true for Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal Le Pen, who had an identical showing within the southern Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, a stronghold of the normal right. The second round of the regional elections will take place on December 13, 2015.

That’s not to say the Front National is at odds with Trump’s sentiment, likely just how he said it. Le Pen’s party runs on a strong anti-immigration plank, campaigning for a huge reduction in legal immigration, the prioritisation of French citizens over immigrants in social housing and jobs, the deportation of foreign criminals and a zero tolerance approach to illegal immigration.

Mr. Trump on Monday evoked comparisons to Ms. Le Pen and her European counterparts with his call to close American borders to all Muslims “until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on”.

Frustrated by the government’s failure to revive a moribund economy, fearful of rising immigration from the Middle East and North Africa, and convinced that recent terrorist attacks in Paris won’t be the last, Camus says he has lost all faith in the country’s mainstream leaders, some of whom have been in politics as long as he has been voting. “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”. A combative Marine Le Pen has slammed such tactics as “undemocratic” and in a speech late Thursday accused her opponents of “intellectual terrorism” in seeking to block her party’s path to power. The online poll took place two days after last Sunday’s first round.

“The Socialist Party is ending its (election) campaign in a delirium of outrageousness and eructations”, she said.

Both women had easily outpaced their conservative rivals in the first round, each grabbing over 40% of the vote, but the party’s hopes of winning its first-ever region could be crushed by its opponents’ political manoeuvring.

The run-offs will be key for all three front-runners for the 2017 presidential elections, Socialist President Francois Hollande, ex-president Sarkozy and Le Pen. Some of the differences may reflect the regions they are contesting, both with significant Muslim populations.

Ms Le Pen has reaped the rewards of her efforts to “de-demonise” the party bequeathed by her former paratrooper father Jean-Marie Le Pen.

But she also said that National Front regions would “open each file” when deciding on subsidies for associations and other interests and “stop, reform or continue”.

Marechal-Le Pen makes it clear she opposes her grandfather’s anti-Semitic remarks, which triggered the feud, but embraces his overall message, including the fear that Islam will overtake French civilization.