Monday, December 07, 2015: National Front (FN) leaped ahead of all the political parties in the first round of the local/regional elections in France on Sunday. This marks as the first-ever major victory for the far-right wing political party that took six of the 12 seats in the regional legislature, beating the ruling Socialists party by 12 percentage points.
National Front, or Front National in French, is not a major party in France, and considering their conservative views on immigration and/or Euro currency, they are not the most followed. However, the political, along with the social, fabric in France has gone through major changes since the Paris terrorist attacks almost three weeks ago. The French people have shown their anger on the current issues of huge immigrant influx into the country and the stagnant economy.
“It’s a major score for the National Front,” Brice Teinturier, deputy head of the pollster Ipsos, told the media. “They’ve benefited from the attacks, they’ve benefited from the migrant crisis.”
Although President Francois Hollande’s approval ratings have improved in the last three weeks from 20 percent to 35 percent, according to the pollster firm, TNS Sofres. However, Socialists failed to convert the approval ratings into votes and bring their voters to the polling stations.
The first round of the regional voting was conducted under a state of emergency as the French law enforcement agencies and national security firms have not dismissed the threat of terrorism in the country, especially in the areas where thousands of immigrants are living in makeshift refugee camps. FN took the seats in those areas as well.
The Socialists took 23.3 percent of the votes whereas former French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Republicans took 27 percent votes, beating the ruling party by 3.7 percentage points. Sarkozy, leader of the Republicans is also running for the 2017 presidential elections in the country.
National Front leader Marine Le Pen has always been against the more liberal ideologies of the other political parties and has always opposed the enactment of mutual Euro currency against the national Franc. Moreover, the immigration system in the country has also been the bullseye for FN and the current national security situation has helped it converting its approval into votes.
“We welcome this magnificent result with humility and seriousness,” Le Pen said from Henin Beaumont in northern France. “We have the ability to achieve the national unity that the country needs.”
The regional elections are mainly local bodies elections in France, majorly for the developmental work and the promotion of tourism in the country. Although these elections do not affect the national legislature in any form, they do predict a major shift of trends in the next presidential elections.
The second round of the elections, however, are predicted to present a different result. Including all their allies together, the Socialists are predicted to take 35 percent of the votes after the second round and the Republicans will take 33 percent of the votes. Both parties are expected to be in the lead at the end of the polling rounds. However, if FN takes somewhere around 30 percent votes in both rounds, it predicts a major shift for the 2017 presidential elections.
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