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1st LD Writethru: 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 is still under way.

In order to keep the far-right out of power, the Socialists urged their supporters to back Nicolas Sarkozy's conservatives in the constituencies where the far-rights were well placed to win.

Despite the anti-immigration party's defeat in the runoff, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that the danger posed by the party which calls for abandon of euro and borders closure, has not gone away.

"Tonight there is no relief, no triumphalism, no message of victory. The danger of the far-right has not been removed, far from it," Valls said.

After a long setback, the National Front became a potent force after leading in France's local and European elections in 2014 by echoing people's concerns of security and high unemployment. A spectacular result which had mirrored the party's potential force to compete for French presidency in two years.

Despite the defeat, Marine Le Pen hailed "a great success."

"These elections have shown once again the inexorable rise of our national power," she said.

Voter turnout rate was 50.54 percent, up from 43.01 percent of the first round, and seven points higher than in the runoff five years ago, the Interior Ministry's data showed.

A total of 21,456 candidates represented in 171 lists have competed for seats in councils of 13 French regions to manage mainly local transport, education and unemployment. Enditem