France’s Le Pen says far-right rise unstoppable despite defeat

Francois Hollande’s Socialist party declined to compete in some regions, paving the way for a Republicans victory.

But the anti-immigration, anti-European Union National Front (FN) is by no means certain to win in any of the 13 regions in this Sunday’s run-offs.

‘We are proud…of the results, ‘ he told supporters tonight.

“If we fail, Islamist totalitarianism will take power in our country”, she said.

Still, politicians on the left and right said mainstream parties must reassess their priorities.

The FN argues that the political manoeuvring by the main two political parties shows that they are two sides of the same coin and the far-right offers the only real political alternative.

Ipsos, Ifop and TNS-Sofres-One Point projected that Le Pen won around 42 per cent compared with Bertrand’s 57 per cent. Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, was projected to win about 45 per cent in the southern Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region, compared with about 55 per cent for Conservative Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi.

The result for the Paris region is not in, but pollsters predict the conservatives have also won there.

Le Pen has engaged in a years-long effort to overhaul the party started by her father, Jean-Marie, who embraced anti-Semitic views and minimized the Holocaust.

Here the French gave a lesson of rallying together, courage. “We might as well try the National Front”, said Mathieu Coze, 30, a train engineer who voted at a polling station in a maze of blocky, gray high-rise apartment buildings.

According to polling institutes’ count the ruling Socialists, humiliated in first round poor score, made the surprise by maintaining their position in at least five out of 13 regions. He called on socialists to vote for LR candidates in the three regions where the FN looked likely to win, and where LR was ahead of the PS in the first round. Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie borders Belgium and the English Channel. Le Pen, head of the National Front Party, is in the race for the presidency o…

Fifteen years later, if Marine Le Pen makes the second round, it will not be a shock and she is likely to seriously narrow the gap.

The Socialists pulled their candidates out of some races and turnout rose sharply from the first round, suggesting that many voters cast ballots to prevent the once-pariah National Front from gaining power.

Candidates battled to the last minute to lure out the almost 50 per cent who failed to vote in the December 6 first round, because their votes could be vital.

The ballot is considered key to the FN’s strategy.

The French people voted yesterday in run-offs for regional elections that will show whether the far-right National Front (FN) can turn popularity into power.

With left-wing support, the LR appears to have won seven of 13 regions, while the PS won six. Her party shook France a week ago by topping voting nationally in the first round. (French) There are victories that shame the winners. “I’m not happy here”, he said, gesturing at a thin blanket pinned to the side of his blue-tarp tent that flapped in the chilly English Channel wind. Just one week later, Le Pen accused the French political system of leading a campaign of intimidation and fear. The far-right leader denounced “this giant campaign of insults, slander, fear” by her rivals during a bitter campaign.