France’s Far-Right National Front Wins First Round Vote After Paris Attacks

FN leader Marine Le Pen is likely to win in the northern region of Nord-Pas-De-Calais-Picardie, while her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen is a leading contender in Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur in the south.

Polling agency projections said on Sunday that the FN came first with between 27.2 percent and 30.8 percent of the vote nationwide, topping the list in at least six of 13 regions.

France’s far-right National Front ran strongly in a first-round regional vote that was the first election since an attack by Islamic extremists left 130 dead in Paris.

The anti-Europe anti-immigration party beat former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative Les Republicains party and their allies who secured 27 percent into second place.

Appearing before her supporters, Ms. Le Pen called it a “magnificent” result, saying the National Front was “the only party that can reconquer the lost territories of the republic, of Calais, where we won 50 percent of the votes, or of the suburbs”.

The far-right party topped the poll right across the country with 28 per cent of the overall vote compared to the 2010 election when it achieved only 11 per cent. “We think the best way to oppose the National Front is by taking our seats in the regional assembly”, he said.

While the National Front had significant support Sunday, it’s unclear whether the party can translate that into victory in the second round of voting on December 13 for leadership of France’s 13 newly drawn regions.

 However, since taking over as leader in 2011 Marine Le Pen has sought to make the FN a less toxic brand, dialling down its racist overtones.

Shortly after the attacks, Le Pen penned an op-ed for Time magazine laying out her party’s plan for stopping similar attacks in the future.

“There is a choice between two visions of France”, Valls said Monday night on the TV station TF1 – that of traditional parties and that of the extreme right “which divides the French, tries to pit one against the other”.

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in Europe and the exploits of ISIL, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, have bolstered the discourse of the National Front.

The National Front’s victory has been largely celebrated in Russian Federation.

The final result will be decided in a second-round vote on Sunday.

She said: “We are not a land of Islam”. Le Pen’s father, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, had a history of anti-Semitism, though his daughter has distanced herself and the party from him and his record.