France’s right-wing parties, led by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, edged out the far-right National Front to take first place in local elections on Sunday, in a crucial test ahead of the 2017 presidential elections.
The conservative alliance, including Sarkozy’s opposition Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), took 32.5 percent of the vote according to the latest polls, ahead of the governing Socialist Party led by much maligned French President Francois Hollande.
The anti-EU and anti-immigration National Front (FN) led by Marine Le Pen, which had dominated the airwaves during the campaign, fell short of polls that had put it in the lead in the run up to the elections.
Photo: AFP
Provisional official figures gave the FN about 25.35 percent, behind the 30 percent or more it was tipped to win from French voters, dissatisfied with the stagnant economy and issues surrounding immigration. The far-right party led the first-round vote in 43 out of 98 “departments” — which have power over local issues such as school and welfare budgets — that voted in Sunday’s poll, according to figures provided by the French Ministry of the Interior.
The FN is expected to go through to the second round in more than half of the 1,100 “cantons” — an administrative division below “departments” — that will vote again in a week, analysis of the data showed.
The party’s best results “are concentrated in the southeast, particularly in the cities and near the cities it runs,” political scientist Jean-Yves Camus said.
That put it ahead of Hollande’s ruling Socialist Party, whose failure to address double-digit unemployment has seen him hemorrhage support since he took charge in 2012. Provisional ministry figures gave the Socialists and their left-wing allies about 22 percent of the vote.
The mainstream parties will be able to call on smaller allies when voters return for run-off elections on Sunday, while the FN will struggle to find partners.
“There will be no local or national deal with the leaders of the FN,” Sarkozy said immediately after the initial figures were released.
The mainstream parties have closed ranks against the FN in recent weeks.
“Tonight, the far-right, even if it is too high, is not the leading political party in France,” Socialist French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said.
He called on voters to back either the left or right in next week’s second-round run-offs to keep the far right from power.
The FN went into the elections polling neck-and-neck with Sarkozy’s right-wing alliance of the UMP and the Union of Democrats and Independents. Le Pen returned to a common theme of her campaign after the results were announced, saying the mainstream parties were conspiring in a campaign of “hate” against her party. She remained bullish about the initial results, pointing to the fact they were higher than the party’s victorious tally in last year’s European polls.
“This massive vote for the National Front that is taking root in election after election shows that the French want to rediscover their freedom,” she said. “Send home those who have brought France to her knees, and bring a new political generation to power.”
Despite weaker results on Sunday, the FN has still enjoyed a run of strong results in recent votes, coming first in the European elections last year and winning control of 11 town halls. Le Pen is hoping this momentum will carry forward to a successful run at the presidency in 2017. Last week, she said her party would “invade the Elysee [presidential palace].”
Her party has capitalized on anger over France’s lackluster economy, as well as the politically explosive issues of immigration and the integration of Islam into French society after the Paris terrorist attacks.
However, it has also benefited from Hollande’s disastrous popularity figures. His ratings have hit record lows, despite a temporary boost in the wake of the January attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, when he was credited with rallying the nation.
Despite the recent rise of the far right, the French Communist Party said it was confident of hanging onto the two departments it still controls in the Allier and the Val-de-Marne near Paris in tight second-round battles.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese