Front National routed at polls – but not in the nation’s hearts

On 6th December, the far right Front National (FN) came first in half the regions in mainland France in the first round of the regional elections. Tonight, a week later, as the polls close at the end of the second round of voting, early results and exit polls show that the FN will not win a single region.

Two of the regions where the FN led have been declared: Languedoc-Roussion-Midi-Pyrénées went to the Socialists; Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur went to the Republicans. The other four have yet to be declared – but it seems the FN may have fallen from first place to third. It is thought that the mainstream right wing Republicans will come second, with the Socialists, who hold the presidency, coming third.

The French regions – twelve in mainland France, with the “overseas territories” forming a thirteenth region – have a large degree of devolved power, so the FN will be furious that it has lost the charge to govern a single region. The defeat is a blow to Marine Le Pen, daughter of FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, the man who did so much to build up the party to the point where it has become a serious contender for power.

The success of the FN in the first round of the voting will certainly have prompted many supporters of other parties to make sure they came out to vote in the second. However, their defeat did not rest entirely on extra turnout from those opposed to the FN, or by the other parties winning the voters over. In large part it came about because of a giant exercise in tactical voting. Several mainstream candidates withdrew from the second round to ensure that the anti-FN vote was not split. Today’s result is less an exercise in the voters getting the regional governments they wanted than in the voters making sure they didn’t get the government they didn’t want.

A similar phenomenon occurred in the 2002 presidential election. Most people had been expecting that the Social Party and Republican candidates would win the first round and then go on to contest the second round. Jean-Marie Le Pen confounded expectations by coming second and fighting the Republican Chirac in the second round. The Socialist Party ran an extremely vigorous campaign to encourage its supporters to come out and vote Republican, and Chirac ended up winning by six to one.

Individual results were influenced this year by the same tactic. Marine Le Pen had been a candidate in Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, and her niece Marion Marechal-Le-Pen had stood in the south. Both led their local polls in the first round, winning over 40% of the votes in their elections. The Socialists Party candidates came third in both seats – and withdrew to make sure the Le Pens were defeated.

Ms Le Pen vowed to keep fighting and predicted that although they had been knocked back today, the FN would have their day. Despite losing, economic conditions in France – and the lack of any credible political leads from the established parties – leave Marie Le Pen with plenty of ammunition to make trouble and attract new supporters. The support the far right FN party has won overall in this election will be used to push President Hollande further off the social course and drag general political discourse in the country more to the right.

The system – particularly the voting system – may have, again, kept the FN out of office. It has not necessarily kept them out of power. With comments on blogs around the world full of the usual tripe (alleging the French results were rigged, etc.) we must all work to head off the threat of the ultra right.

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