Front National tops French elections post-Paris terror attacks

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35025846

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ntial-bid.html

Front National storms to victory in French regional elections

- Party storms to victory in 6 out of 13 French regions after Paris terror attacks
- Marion Le Pen expected to win her region, the second most populous part of France outside Paris
- Sets the stage for Marine Le Pen's 2017 Presidential run in which she is seen as the front-runner

Marine Le Pen

France's anti-mass immigration and anti-EU Front National topped the country's regional election vote on Sunday in a breakthrough that shakes up the country's political landscape. The party received at least 29.4 per cent of the votes as the country continues its state of emergency following the Paris terror attacks. It won six out of 13 regions in the election's first round, which 44 million people were eligible to vote for. The success of the party in the regional elections sets the stage for the 2017 Presidential Elections in which Marine Le Pen is seen as the candidate to beat.

Former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative Les Republicains party and their allies came second with around 27 per cent of the vote while President Francois Hollande’s ruling Socialists came third. Front National leader Marine Le Pen welcomed the 'magnificent result', which will leave her in the ideal position for a presidential bid in 2017.

She added that the result proved the party was 'without contest the first party of France'. Ms Le Pen, who led the first round in southeast France with 42 per cent, had argued before the vote that refugee camps like the so-called ‘Jungle’ in Calais are full of young men who are potential terrorists.

Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy seen arriving at a polling station earlier yesterday

She also reminded voters that some of the Paris murderers, including suicide bombers at the Stade de France, are said to have entered Europe from Syria as alleged asylum seekers. Mr Sarkozy on Sunday ruled out any alliance with the president's party to keep the Front National out of power in regional councils.

Voters were choosing leadership for the country’s 13 newly redrawn regions in elections that go to a second round on December 13. Ms Le Pen’s niece, 25-year-old Marion Marechal-Le Pen, also did well in the southern regions. Ms Marechal-Le Pen became the youngest MP in French parliamentary history, when she was elected three years ago aged just 22. The two women have strenuously denied they are competing against one another.

Marion Le Pen, aged 25, came first in her region

The result comes after commentators predicted National Front will win three major regions following the second round of voting in a week’s time. The National Front has previously never ruled at a higher level than town halls. French regions rule over local transport and economic development as well as high schools and vocational training. Their powers have been beefed up after a reform that cut their numbers from 22 to 13.

Absolutely stunning. I'm very happy with the result.

The interesting thing is how Marine Le Pen has transformed the party since she took over in 2011. It's now a serious contender for power so much so that the two main parties are now talking about dropping out of elections in order to prop each other up against her onslaught. She herself won in the Calais region which is akin to the Welsh valley's here: depressed coal towns which were the heartlands of the French Socialist (Labour) Party. Her niece on the other hand won in a region that is traditionally conservative in the south of France against Sarkozy's Republican Party.

It's also worth noting that these kind of results were expected even before the Paris terror attacks.

Thoughts?

[MKR&*42]

Quelle Surprise after what happened

[FlyingJesus]

Sad times when reactionary voting overtakes rational thought, just proves that terrorism works

[-:Undertaker:-]

Sad times when reactionary voting overtakes rational thought, just proves that terrorism works

Well no it's good times because the people who have been proved right by events are being rewarded and the people who aided the terrorists are being punished at the ballot box. That's kinda how democracy is supposed to work rather than voting for failed parties just because your parents always did.

Interestingly support for the Front National is strongest among the young French demographic of 18 to 29.

[-:Undertaker:-]

The second round is tonight and the evil Socialist Party has pulled its candidates out from some regions and backed the Republican Party to stop Marine Le Pen. That'd be like Labour joining in a government with the Conservatives here. It goes to show where the real divide in politics is and how the mainstream parties are terrified of having their tidy and corrupt arrangements taken apart. Two detested and rotting political parties hoisting one another up by the noose.

It may deny the Front Nationale offices of state for now but all it'll do is solidify its support base. After all, are issues such as radical Islamification, mass immigration and the unrestrained power of the European Union going to get better or worse anytime soon? It's a no-brainer what happens in the end.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Exit polls suggesting FN to get no regions despite winning a third of the vote.

The voting system was actually implemented to stop the FN. When that failed, now the two main parties join together. They're running out of road-blocs.

The mood here in France is absolutely execrable today, and the people of France are now being frogmarched into accepting truths they have been avoiding for 20 years or more. Hollande's socialists are prostituting themselves for the Républicains, Valls is hinting at forming a new party in the future, the Républicains are unashamedly exploiting the situation, and the FN are basking in their new-found glory. And that's just the good news.

The bad news is that although the FN got over a third of the votes they won't get anything like a third of the regions. That may please the other parties for petty political reasons, but all it's doing is putting off the problems that need to be faced, and voters across the board now realise this. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a FN supporter, anything but, yet the fact is that the problems besetting the country are being exacerbated by the fact that the concerns of so many voters are being ignored.

The morale of the French has never been so low in all the time I've lived here (27 years) and the latent hate that the French feel for all things political is bound to boil over one day, with possibly disastrous results for everybody.