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Far-right Front National denied first place in local elections in France Far-right Front National denied first place in local elections in France
(34 minutes later)
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party and their allies led in the first round of French local elections, exit polls showed on Sunday, denying Marine Le Pen’s far-right Front National (FN) first place. France’s mainstream parties gave a collective – if qualified – sigh of relief on Sunday after they appeared to have seen off a threat from the far-right Front National.
Opinion surveys in the run up to Sunday’s vote had suggested the FN, led by Marine Le Pen, could win up to 30% of votes, marginally ahead of former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre right UMP but leaving the governing Parti Socialiste trailing in third place.
Instead, early estimates released as the last of the polling stations closed on Sunday evening suggested the UMP had won a convincing lead and the PS had narrowly avoided total humiliation.
Provisional figures gave the opposition centre right UMP party around 37%, president François Hollande’s PS 27% and the FN between 23 and 26%. The results will not be confirmed until later Sunday night or Monday morning, but several independent opinion polls confirmed the PS had narrowly defeated the FN.
Related: Far-right Front National: from protest vote to 'first party in France'?Related: Far-right Front National: from protest vote to 'first party in France'?
If confirmed, the result would be a setback for Le Pen, who had hoped her anti-immigrant, anti-euro party would emerge top in the first round, boosting her ambitions to win presidential elections set for 2017. While Sunday’s result will be a blow for the FN and its anti-immigrant, anti-euro and anti-European Union stance, it firmly establishes the party as the third key player on the French political landscape and will encourage Le Pen for the 2017 presidential elections.
The UMP and its partners together secured 29.2% of the vote nationally, an exit poll by Ifop suggested, ahead of the FN on 26.3%. A separate poll by CSA put Sarkozy and his allies on as much as 31%, with the FN on 24.5%. Afterwards, prime minister Manuel Valls said it was an “honourable score” for the Socialist government and said it proved the “extreme right is not the first political force in France”. However, he was forced to admit that support for the FN was still “too strong” and abstention still too high.
As expected, President Francois Hollande’s ruling Socialists came third with around 20% of the vote, underlining their unpopularity after failed promises to bring unemployment down from current levels of around 10%. “The total of votes for the left is the same as those for the right. This means nothing has been decided during this first round vote, and the left must unify,” Valls said.
The vote was for local councillors in France’s “départements”, or counties, one level in France’s complex multi-layered system of local government. About one in two voters were estimated to have snubbed the poll. He appealed for voters to turn out in strength for the second round vote next Sunday.
Despite failing in its ambition to come top in the first round, the score marked strong gains for the FN, which wants a return of the franc and a referendum on capital punishment. Sarkozy ruled out any agreement “either at national or local level” with the FN in areas where the UMP was in a runoff with the PS for the second vote.
It surfed a wave of disenchantment with established parties to emerge top in last year’s European parliament elections and won control of a dozen city halls in a separate ballot. However, in what is seen as a “neither-nor” stance, he said his party would not call for supporters to vote for the PS or other left-wing parties in areas where this would defeat the FN.
However the two-round nature of Sunday’s ballot means the FN will win control in only a handful of départements in second-round run-offs due on 29 March. Many UMP and Socialist voters are expected to switch allegiance to whatever party can keep the FN out of power. Marine Le Pen hid her disappointment, telling supporters at the party headquarters at Nanterre just outside Paris: “For those who want to get rid of the PS, the FN is key.”
France’s departmental elections, characterised by high abstention, have rarely provoked such excitement and suspense.
It was feared that Hollande and the PS, as well as other leftwing parties, had completely alienated core and key voters from France’s blue-collar working classes.
Various analysts have tried to explain the growing popularity of the FN in France, though many argue people are voting far right by default because of disappointment and disillusionment with the mainstream parties.
Political science professor Laurent Bouvet, of the thinktank the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, which advises the PS and aims to “promote the study of workers’ movements and international socialism and promote democratic and humanist ideas”, told The Observer the French left was suffering after abandoning blue-collar workers.
Related: ‘Abandoned’ French working class ready to punish left’s neglect by voting for far right
He blamed the rise in support for the FN on an identity crisis among the country’s working classes.
Christophe Guilluy, a geographer and one of Hollande’s advisors, views the phenomenon as geographic.
In his books Guilluy argues the country divides into “La France metropolitan”, made up of the 25 biggest towns/cities and their banlieue (suburbs), representing 10% of communes, 40% of the population and two thirds of France’s gross domestic product, and “La France péripherique”, made up of the rest of the country including rural villages, peri-urban areas and middle-size towns.
While those in the former, including the outer city banlieue, have flourished under globalisation, those “new working classes in la France péripherique” including “native French...and those from old immigration waves” are pushed out and “forgotten”, he argues.
Bouvet, whose book l’Insécurité Culturelle has caused a storm in France, described the FN as a “danger for the Republic”.