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France's UMP placed first in first round of regional elections, ruling PS lagging behind

Xinhua, March 23, 2015 Adjust font size:

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP party and its allies was put in the first place in Sunday's first round of French regional elections with 29.4 percent of the votes, said final results released by the Interior Ministry showed on Monday.

The far-right National Front (FN) party secured the second place with 25.19 percent of the votes, up by 10 percentage points from 2011's first round, boosting chances of the anti-immigrant party to bid for the country's presidential in 2017.

Failing to convince voters in the previous local and European elections, the ruling Socialists and their partners collected better-than-expected votes at 21.85 percent against 19 percent reported by exit polls.

About 21 million out of the 41.6 eligible million voters participated in the first round on Sunday, making the abstention rate to stand at 49.71 percent, lower than that of the 2011's first round which was at 55.7 percent, according to the Ministry's data.

The second round of the race to France's regional councils is scheduled for March 29. Endit