French Elections: Marine Le Pen's Front National to make huge gains

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...elections.html

Front National makes historic gains in French municipal elections

Marine Le Pen's FN expected to make the second round run-off in up to 200 towns while ruling Socialists likely to clinch all-female duel in Paris and the opposition centre-Right to keep Marseille.

Marine Le Pen leaves a polling booth

The Front National (FN) was on course on Sunday night to make historic gains in France’s first nationwide elections since François Hollande became president.

In what Marine Le Pen, the FN leader, described as a “breakthrough” and the “end of bipolarisation” of French politics, her party came out ahead in a string of French towns in the first round of municipal elections.

The FN won an outright majority in the northern town of Henin-Beaumont and was first-placed in the eastern town of Forbach and the southern towns of Avignon, Perpignan and Béziers.

Mr Hollande's Socialist Party, meanwhile, was heading for heavy losses as voters appeared to punish his dithering and lack of results two years into his five-year mandate.

These could trigger a re-shuffle of his cabinet, potentially seeing Ségolène Royal, his former partner and mother of four children, take up a ministerial post.

The mainstream centre-Right UMP party fared better than the ruling Socialists, who suffered the most from record low voter turnout of around 60 per cent. The UMP is well-placed to take back dozens of towns from the Left, including Amiens, Tourcoing, Quimper, Angers and Pau.

Almost 45 million French took to the ballot box to elect more than 36,000 mayors for the next six years in what was being seen as a test for the Socialist president, whose approval ratings have sunk below 20 per cent.

While municipal elections are fought above all on local issues, disaffection with the main parties clearly bolstered the score of the anti-mass immigration, anti-EU Front National in the two-round contest. Miss Le Pen secured just under 18 per cent of the national vote in the first round of the presidential elections two years ago and has since widened her support base by campaigning on issues such as unemployment, living costs and crime.

The FN hopes to increase its number of municipal councillors from around 50 to 1,000 and to win control of several mid-sized towns.

It was heading to be kingmaker in up to 200 towns where its candidates were on course to reach round two by winning more than 10 per cent of the vote. If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the vote in round one, the race goes to a run-off.

The Socialists were pinning their damage limitation hopes on retaining Paris, where Anne Hidalgo, their Spanish-born candidate, was on course to succeed Bertrand Delanoë and come out just ahead of Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, her conservative rival.

The consistent favourite in the all-female duel, Miss Hidalgo lost steam in recent days in a row over sky-high pollution levels in the capital while NKM, her rival is known, called on Parisians to create an “electro-shock” by placing her ahead in round one.

The UMP candidate pulled that feat off by a whisker last night, but with the Socialists ahead in the key 12th and 14th arrondissements, Miss Hidalgo is polled to win the run-off comfortably barring a major upset.

One of the biggest shocks of the night was the Socialists’ terrible score in Marseille, where veteran UMP mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin is on course for a fourth term. Socialist Patrick Menucci only mustered third place behind Mr Gaudin and his FN rival.

Mid-term elections traditionally see losses for the ruling party, which proved the case in 2008 when the Left took control of most towns of more than 9,000 inhabitants in protest votes against Nicolas Sarkozy, the then president. But the UMP, mired in a series of corruption scandals, has failed to capitalise on widespread rejection of the Left.

Jean-François Copé, the UMP leader, is facing allegations that he allowed a business run by friends to cheat the party by overcharging for election events.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the former conservative president and UMP leader, is facing an investigation into whether he sought to curry favour with a judge to get inside information on legal proceedings concerning him.

Mr Sarkozy, who voted with his wife, Carla, yesterday, hit back last week by accusing judges who tapped his phones of acting like “the Stasi” police.

Some 389 Britons are running for municipal councillor under a 2001 rule in which other European Union nationals can seek town hall posts. But they require French nationality to become mayor.

Well done, she's gone a long way over the past few years to cleaning up the former extreme Front National: and it looks like it's paying off. French and Dutch politics are very interesting as of late, and it's worth noting that the Front National are on course to be first in the French European Elections this May - the same for Wilders and the PVV in the Netherlands.

I'm sure one of my essays i've got for next month is on this topic of the populist right across Europe.

Thoughts?