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France's far-right National Front fails to top regional election

Xinhua, December 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

French far-right National Front party, who reported a historic victory during first round of the French regional election last week, failed on Sunday during the final round of the runoff.

Based on OpinonWay/B2S pollster's partial vote count, the National Front leader Marine Le Pen failed to take the France's northernmost area, Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region where The Republicans' candidate Xavier Bertrands won 57.7 percent of the votes.

In the southeast, her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen was beaten by the conservative Christian Estrosi with a big difference, 53.5 percent versus 46.5 percent.

According to polling institutes' count the ruling Socialists, humiliated in first round poor score, made the surprise by maintaining their position in at least five out of 13 regions.

Targeting a large win for a strong bid for 2017 presidential election, the center-right The Republicans secured the first rank also at five regions while tight difference between Left and Right camps was expected in Normadie and Ile-de-France regions where counting are still under way. Enditem