French far-right leader Le Pen acquitted of inciting hatred

Final official results were expected Monday.

Ms Le Pen’s tweets came in response to a broadcast journalist broadly comparing her party to the extremist group.

Before the regional elections got under way a week ago, it was widely speculated that the Islamophobic National Front party would make political gains against the ruling Socialists in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.

“We avoided a catastrophe”, said Parisian Sylviane Koch.

Yet, punctuating that collective sigh of relief is the fact that neither President François Hollande nor former president Nicolas Sarkozy can rejoice.

Party maneuvers to block the National Front’s victory provided the easy fall of the NFP.

“Madame Le Pen: inflaming public debate, political and moral failing, non-respect for victims”, he wrote on his Twitter account. “The danger of the far-right is still around”.

Many voters on the left and right appeared to have rallied together to keep the party, whose founder has been repeatedly convicted of racism and anti-Semitism, from power.

“France in moments of truth has always taken refuge in its real values”, Valls said.

The Socialists moved to the front line to block the party in two key regions – where Le Pen and her popular niece were running – by withdrawing their own candidates.

The trial against Le Pen began in October.

“Nothing can stop us now”, Ms Le Pen told supporters after the result announcement.

France’s two mainstream parties won control of most of the country’s mainland regions.

She celebrated the “total eradication” of the left, who had controlled all but one of France’s regions before this vote and were projected to lose several.

“The National Front is attractive to its very enthusiastic electorate, which represents between one-quarter and one-third of the French, but it also inspires a lot of aversion, which led many French to react and say, ‘No, I don’t want it, ‘” Riviere added, speaking on France Info radio.

Le Pen tweeted the photos after Jean-Jacques Bourdin, known for his brash style, said on BFM TV that her National Front party and IS both focus on identity, so share a “community of spirit”.

In May past year, the party had unprecedented success in France’s European elections, winning 25.41% of the vote – enough for 23 seats in the European Parliament.

The 47-year-old had been accused of “inciting discrimination, violence or hatred toward a group of people based on their religious beliefs” over the comments she made on the campaign trail in December 2010.

They showed Le Pen won around 42 per cent of the vote in the Nord-Pas de Calais region, and rival conservative Xavier Bertrand about 57 per cent.

Le Pen’s NFP was leading in the first round of voting in six of the 13 regions.