French PM warns about “civil war” if far-rightists win regional election

While National Front party lists dominated in six of France’s 13 regions, several polls suggest it could lose that edge in Sunday’s final round.

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. “I always voted to the right, to the left, yet it does not do any good”, stated Camus, who heads up a small, family-owned demolition company. “Maybe when they know there is another party, they will reform the country”. He wasn’t the one new supporter within the room, which included blue-collar staff & bourgeois suburbanites, current college graduates & retirees. It won the lead position heading into the second round of regional elections Sunday.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls, a Socialist campaigning for weeks against the National Front, played the greatest anxiety card Friday, saying on France Inter radio that “the extreme right supporters section … that could cause civil war”.

That, though, may be an exaggeration.

In the north, Le Pen would win 47 percent of the vote while Xavier Bertrand, a former minister with the conservative Republicans, would get 53 percent, the TNS Sofres-OnePoint poll showed.

Ms Le Pen – who won more than 40 per cent of the vote in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie regional elections last weekend – hit back at Mr Valls assertion as a “delirious outburst”.

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).

In the northern France region where Le Pen is a candidate, for each 100 euros of the region’s budget this year, 65 go to transport, schools and vocational training, 5 to economic development, 5 to subsidies, 4 to culture and 2 to sports.

Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader, arrives to attend a political rally as she campaigns for the upcoming regional elections in Paris, France.

He said there were many unknowns, including the turnout.

“It is clear that the migrant crisis, like the attacks, placed at the center of political debate issues on which the National Front is considered … to be stronger-immigration issues, security issues and identity issues”, said Joel Gombin, a researcher at the Observatory for Radicalism at the Jean-Jaures Foundation.

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”. Even if Le Pen managed to win in the first round, she would have to gain support from voters who picked the mainstream centre-right or centre-left parties initially.

“Seriously, have you ever heard me say something like that?” she asked on Thursday when questioned about Mr. Trump’s comments during a television interview.

She said she would also scrap development aid subsidies and use the money instead to boost exports for French firms.