French Far Right Leader Marine Le Pen: “Getting Closer”

National Front party leader Marine Le Pen speaks during a news conference Monday in Lille, France, following Sunday’s first-round voting in regional elections on Sunday.

 Mr. Hollande’s popularity has risen with his firm response to the Paris attacks but this has not translated into a boost for his party as a whole, for which this was a crushing result ahead of next year’s presidential election.

A grouping of right-wing parties took between 27 and 27.4 percent, the estimates showed, while the ruling Socialist party and its allies took 22.7-23.5 percent.

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

Les Republicains and the National Front are likely to receive around 30 percent of votes each, according to opinion polls.

“The main issue of that party is racism; racism against foreigners, against migrants, against Muslims” says essayist Laurent Levy, a member of the small Left Front party.

The achievement for the anti-immigrant party Sunday comes shortly after last month’s Islamic State terror attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people. Projections showed the National Front lists with around 40 percent first-round support in both regions, a good 15 percent ahead of second-place Republicans. It is the region of the “great east”, the third that could be won over by the Front National, turning its victory into a triumph.

France’s new regional authorities have wide powers over local transport, education and economic development.

Le Pen, who herself topped the poll as lead candidate in the Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardie region where the migrant crisis is symbolized by the migrant camps outside Calais, refrained from claiming victory.

After election, Le Pen assessed the result as “historic, extraordinary result” and stated that “It is a magnificent result that we will treat with humility and a profound sense of responsibility”.

Her 25-year-old niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen seemed to be heading for an equally strong score in the vast southeastern Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region that includes beaches thronged by sun-seekers in the summer.

Le Pen’s National Front took advantage of fears across the country by campaigning on an anti-immigration, anti-EU and often Islamophobic platform to garner support in the aftermath of deadly attacks in the nation’s capital Paris.

The anti-immigration party did well in Sunday’s first round of the elections. 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.