French Socialists retreat further to ward off far-right

France’s far-right National Front party, capitalizing on terrorist attacks last month in Paris, was dominant in the first round of weekend regional elections.

Long content with attracting protest votes, the FN has changed strategy since Le Pen took the party over from her father Jean-Marie in 2011, seeking to build a base of locally elected officials to target the top levels of power.

Sunday’s polls were held under tight security and under a state of emergency following the Paris attacks that killed 130 on November 13.

The FN has been steadily gaining traction in France over the past few years as Ms Le Pen has maintained its strident nationalism, while purging some of the party’s more extreme elements.

Jacques Sapir, Director of Studies at the French School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences told Sputnik that Le Pen could win in the first round of presidential election, however French political system would allow her rivals to achieve victory in the second one.

President Hollande has seen his personal ratings surge on the back of his hardline approach since the Paris carnage, but his party is being punished for a jobless total of around three million.

The National Front’s victory has been largely celebrated in Russian Federation. According to them, it would be necessary to desist to stem the rise of the Front National where the party came in third.

Nor will the Socialists be fielding a candidate in round two down South in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, where Marion Maréchal Le Pen, Marine’s 25-year old niece, clinched a similarly high score.

The second round of the regional elections will be held next Sunday. 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. The head of the French employers’ group, Medef, warned before the regional elections that her proposals were the exact opposite of what the country needed.

“I believe the incredible results of the National Front amounts to the revolt of the people against the elite”, Le Pen said Monday on RTL radio.

Front National’s divisive anti-immigration, socially conservative, anti-Schengen platform has been pulling in new voters since the attacks, while continuing to spark criticism and allegations of xenophobia and racism. Previously, the FN has never won a single region.

Le Pen said she was “not worried” by Socialist plans to withdraw but acknowledged that “things will obviously be a bit less straightforward”. Many French voters are exhausted with the country’s traditional center-right and center-left forces and see the National Front as the only way to challenge the political establishment.