Traditional parties dealt a severe blow to the far right in France’s regional elections on Sunday, shattering its ambitions to seize control of a region for the first time and slowing its pace for next year’s presidential election.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Committee, acknowledged that the anti-immigration party had not won a single victory in France’s 12 regions. He immediately focused on next year’s presidential election, saying “there seems to be more elections than ever that will allow for policy and political change.”
Le Pen complained that the organization of the two election rounds on consecutive weekends was “disastrous and erratic.” However, the results of the National Committee on the decisive day on Sunday suggest that the party continues to hate many voters. It did not reach more than 20% of the vote nationwide, putting it behind the regular right-wing and all-green and left-wing candidates, according to Ipop voting agency figures.
It is noteworthy that the Acropolis National was severely defeated in the Southeast, with some predicting a better chance of winning the regional council election.
As has happened in previous national and local elections, voters are uniting their political differences to prevent the Acrobatic National from advancing.
The main candidates boasted that they had made painful attacks on the far-right party known as the National Front. No region changed link. According to the official results and forecasts of the voting agencies, the right retains the seven seats it previously controlled, while the left retains power in the other five.
On the right, the winner, Xavier Bertrand, promised to be “arrested” in the region ruled by the Acrobasian National, “arrested” in Upper France in the north, but “we forced a lot of it back”.
Laurent Wagwis, another winner on the right, said in the region he was in charge that there was “no place to thrive” on the right-wing left, the Auvergne-Rன்n-Alps.
Elections were more focused because they were seen as a test to determine whether the Acrobatic National was gaining followers, despite their focus on regional issues and low turnout. Le Pen sought to shake the reputation of being an extremist for a decade, which led many ordinary citizens to reject the National Front. The party’s failure to regain control of a region indicates that Le Pen is unacceptable to many voters in the 2022 presidential election.
There was not much interest among the voters, with one-third of those registered taking part. Some lamented that voters, especially young people, had lost their last chance to vote before the 2022 election.
“It’s a shame,” said Suzette Lefebvre, a retired voter in the north of the country. “For this our parents fought for us and people will not take advantage of it.”
Philip Carbonois, another retiree from the region, said young people should not “trust politics.”
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