Marine Le Pen speech upbeat despite election defeat

French exit polls predicted that the far-right National Front party would not win a single race in regional elections, a stunning blow to the party whose popularity many predicted would surge in the wake of immigration concerns and last month’s Paris terror attacks.

When the FN made a historic breakthrough and took almost 28% of the vote in the first round of the regional elections, it was yet another moment in which the party was ranked as “the most popular in France” after successively topping a series of polls from the European elections onwards in a steady rise. But unlike the ruling socialist party (PS) and Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative “Les Républicains” (LR), the FN has no allies or reserve voters to bolster its score in the run-off. An hour before most voting booths closed at 6 p.m., 50.54% of registered voters had voted compared with 43.47% at the same time in 2010.

Sarkozy said French voters had given all politicians a warning that could not be ignored.

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.

Although it won no region on Sunday after the Socialists pulled out of its key target regions and urged their supporters to back the conservatives of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, the FN still recorded its best showing in its history. Her niece Marion Maréchal, and FN Vice-President Florian Philippot were also beaten in other regions, despite topping the result in the first round of voting.

“By tripling the number of regional councilors, the National Front will become the first opposition party in most of the regional councils in France, a constructive and creative opposition”, Le Pen said addressing supporters of the party after elections. The National Front failed to win any.

Le Pen denounced the “campaign of calumny decided in the palaces of the (French) Republic”, a reference to fear tactics by rivals, including Prime Minister Manuel Valls who warned said the National Front could lead the nation into “civil war”.

“We mustn’t confuse regional elections fought on a different system with National Assembly elections where the FN has no chance at all of coming to power in the foreseeable future”, said Jim Shields, head of French studies at Aston University in Birmingham, England.

Among prizes falling to the conservatives was the Paris region, long a Socialist bastion.

Le Pen had been counting on winning control of some regions this time around to show that her party was fit to govern in the run-up to the next presidential election.

One of the biggest victories on Sunday went to Socialist Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who will head the Brittany region where he won over half the vote, while also remaining in his government post.

The outcome in the Paris region, now controlled by the left, remains unclear. Marine Le Pen pointed this out in her concession speech tonight, saying that she had achieved the “total eradication” of the left. Francois Hollande’s Socialist party declined to compete in some regions, paving the way for a Republicans victory.

However, polls in recent days showed the National Front winning less than half the vote.