French far right collapses at polls

• Marine Le Pen’s farright National Front collapsed in French regional elections Sunday, failing to take a single region after dominating the first round of voting, pollsters projected. The conservatives surged against the governing Socialists, changing the political map of France.

The failure of the National Front to gain any of the six regions where it was leading didn’t stop the anti- immigration party from looking to the 2017 presidential election — Le Pen’s ultimate goal.

Le Pen had been riding high after extremist attacks and an unprecedented wave of migration into Europe, and the party came out on top in the voting in France’s 13 newly drawn regions in the first round a week ago. But projections by France’s major polling firms suggested the party lost in all of the regions Sunday, including decisive losses for both Le Pen and her popular niece.

“Here we stopped the progression of the National Front,” said conservative Xavier Bertrand, who beat Le Pen by nearly 15 points in the NordPas de Calais region.

Le Pen struck an upbeat tone despite the rout, pledging to keep fighting to expand support for her party. She said she would in the coming weeks “rally all the French, of all origins, who want to join us. Nothing will stop us.”

In all, the conservative Republicans took seven regions,

Here we stopped the progression of the National

Front

and the Socialists won five, Interior Ministry results showed.

Among prizes falling to the conservatives was the Paris region, long a Socialist bastion.

Le Pen denounced t he “campaign of calumny decided in the palaces of the ( French) Republic,” a reference to fear tactics by rivals, including Prime Minister Manuel Valls who said the National Front could lead the nation into “civil war.”

Turnout was seven per cent higher than for the previous regional elections in 2010, with 50.4 per cent of those eligible to vote casting ballots by

Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that the far right remains a “danger” despite the defeat, and urged his country to rally together against extremism.

“France in moments of truth has always taken refuge in its real values,” Valls said.

The National Front has racked up political victories in local elections in recent years, but winning control of any region would have been an unprecedented boost for the party ahead of presidential elections in 18 months.

Still, politicians on the left and right said mainstream parties must reassess their priorities.

“We can no longer continue like this. We must act,” Socialist Party leader Jean- Christophe Cambadelis told leftist ranks.

Indeed, the day kicked off the unofficial election season as politicians from all parties cast Sunday’s results in terms of their presidential ambitions.