Defeat for Marine Le Pen – exit polls

The far-right National Front has failed to repeat its successful performance in a second round of regional elections in France, despite its strong showing in the first round a week ago.

A week after the National Front came out on top in the first round of voting, France sent a far different message, with the party losing even in a northern region where its charismatic leader, Marine Le Pen, had been widely expected to win.

The anti-immigration party failed to win any regions, according to exit polls.

According to RFI, FN leader Marine Le Pen lost to the centre-right alliance Republicans representative Xavier Bertrand, with Le Pen gathering 42 percent votes against Bertrand’s 58 percent in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie.

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.

With most of the votes counted, the governing Socialists appear to have secured five regions, while the victor in Corsica is not affiliated with a major party.

Le Pen responded furiously to the Socialists’ political maneuvering, labelling it “undemocratic”.

“Thank you and bravo for freeing yourselves from indecent [voting] orders, from smear campaigns decided in the golden palaces of the Republic and slavishly executed by those who live in this system and bloom on the Frenches’ backs”, said Marine Le Pen, stressing that her party will still be the first opposition party in the regional bodies.

For Sarkozy, who was hoping a landslide victory would raise his chances for re-election in 2017, the first round was a severe disappointment that weakened his hand within his Republicans party. Yet most French remain opposed to her calls to ditch the euro and re-establish national borders, as well as her comments about the dangers of immigration. The results were met with boos and shouts of disgust and disappointment at the election headquarters of Marine Le pen in Henin-Beaumont in northern France.

The regional election run-off, in which the conservatives won seven constituencies and the Socialists five, was no real victory for either of these two mainstream parties, shaken by the far-right’s growing appeal to disillusioned voters.

It is not the first time that mainstream parties have united to block the National Front.

Official results were due later on Sunday.

But early results from the second round of regional elections showed the party hadn’t yet managed to shift the balance of power. “Nobody can say they won tonight”, he said.

The Socialists have pulled out their candidates in two regions in the north and south of the country where respectively Le Pen and her 26-year-old niece Marion are running.

The higher turnout in a presidential election than in regional ballots would also work against Le Pen.

28 percent of the vote, the far-right party achieved its best result ever, 3 percentage points better than in European elections a year ago, its previous best.

“Nothing will stop us”, she said.

The Socialists withdrew their candidates from the regions where Le Pen and her niece ran to throw the elections to the Republicans. The Socialist candidate refused to pull out in a third region, in the east, where the National Front’s No. 2, Florian Philippot, scored well.