France’s regional elections: Le Pen wins historic result in the first round

An exit poll conducted by Ifop-Fiducial suggested the party, led by Marine Le Pen, was leading in six of the country’s 13 regions and had 30.6% of the overall vote, ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right Republicans on 27% and President Francois Hollande’s ruling Socialists on 22.7%.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the co-founder and former leader of the France’s far right party the National Front (FN), celebrated the party’s achievements in the regional elections Sunday by tweeting a video of Conservative party candidate Christian Estrosi wearing a skullcap and dancing with Jewish men. However his Socialist party has not enjoyed a similar boost.

Le Pen won 40.64 percent of the vote in the Nord-Pas-de Calais region she contested and her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen scored 40.55 percent in Provence-Alpes-Cote D’Azur in the south. The abstention rate was 50.9 percent nationally. It’s hoping the regional elections will consolidate political gains Le Pen has made in current years of time of time, & strengthen its legitimacy as she prepares to hunt the presidency in 2017.

“I expect to gain enough momentum in this first round to be optimistic about the second round”, Marine Le Pen said as she cast her vote on Sunday morning.

This does not mean that the National Front will ultimately govern the six regions it won.

The Paris attacks on November 13 inspired by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and a Europe-wide refugee crisis this year has shaken up France’s political landscape. Last spring, it got 25 percent at the first round of local elections but failed to win any departments.

The PS candidate in a third region, Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in eastern France, rejected a call from party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis to withdraw in the second round.

Le Pen has demanded a crackdown on Islamists in France.

Socialist leaders will begin talks after the first results come in on Sunday to decide whether to withdraw from some second-round battles, while the Republicans’ strategy meeting is set for Monday.

Its repeated linking of immigration with terrorism has also helped it climb in the polls since the gun and suicide bombing assaults in Paris.

Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls and the conservative-leaning national business lobby issued a public appeal this week to stop the National Front’s march toward victory.

The next presidential elections in France are in 2017. The party was historically associated with xenophobic, racist or antisemitic stances, but since taking charge Ms Le Pen has worked to soften its image and distance herself from her father.