Reuters
Paris
France’s far-right National Front is expected to strengthen its hold on grassroots politics in a second round of local elections yesterday that ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives are forecast to win.
Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant, anti-euro FN party aims to build a base of locally elected officials to become more mainstream and thus better placed to contest national ballots.
In a setback to its claims to have become France’s leading party, the FN placed second last week in the first round of the local elections, but it did win one in four votes and is all but certain to see a big jump from its current two councillors.
“The FN has now put down roots nationwide, it has reached a level that is high, too high,” French prime minister Manuel Valls, a Socialist, told Le Journal du Dimanche weekly.
Valls, whose deeply unpopular government is trying to play up modest signs of recovery in the eurozone’s second largest economy, has stressed his “fear” of the FN’s rise in an attempt to mobilise left-wing voters.
The second round is also a key test for Sarkozy, who has put a shaky political comeback back on track by steering his conservative UMP party and its allies to an unexpected victory in the first round but still faces resistance within his party.
Opinion polls see the UMP and its allies winning the local elections with nearly twice as many seats as president Francois Hollande’s Socialists and their allies.
The polls see the Socialists losing 20 to 40 of the 61 “departments” they now hold, but Valls said his government would press on with reforms to tackle France’s economic stagnation, adding that a cabinet reshuffle was not on the cards for now.
The FN, which topped last year’s European parliament elections in France, had eight of its candidates elected in the first round of the local polls and could see as many as 220 more elected yesterday, an Ifop poll showed. That would be far fewer than the mainstream parties but a big jump from all past elections in the “departements” councils.
The far-right party is hoping to win one or two “departements” at most due to unfavourable electoral arithmetic but it is eyeing a bigger win in regional polls later this year. Surveys also show that Le Pen is likely to make it to the second round of France’s presidential election in 2017, but not winning.
The complex election system, in which a duo of councillors is elected per constituency who then elect the presidents of 98 “departements” councils, means it may take time to form a clear picture of how many councils each party has won.
In total, 4,108 councillors with limited powers over roads, schools and social services will be elected. At 1700 (1500 GMT), voter turnout stood at 41.94%, nearly six points higher than in the previous local elections in 2011.
A heavy defeat for the Socialists would be a bad sign in the run-up to the 2017 presidential elections, in which Sarkozy hopes to wrest power back from the leftist government that has struggled with a sluggish economy and high unemployment.
Shortly before heading to Tunisia to take part in an anti-terrorism march, president Francois Hollande cast his vote in the rural area of Tulle, where he was mayor from 2001 to 2008.
Voter disappointment with what some see as Hollande’s economic failures mean Sarkozy’s centre-right coalition is likely to dominate the ballot after topping last week’s first-round vote.
“The situation is catastrophic, maybe things will change,” said Paul, a 52-year-old maintenance worker living in Lille, near the Belgian border.
Despite the widespread thirst for change, the Socialists did better than expected, taking 21.% of the first-round vote.
However, government officials fear the ruling party may lose between half and two-thirds of the 60 councils it currently controls in the run-off round.
The local vote has put Sarkozy back in the limelight after a sluggish return to politics in September.
“Change is under way, and nothing will stop it,” he said after his UMP-UDI alliance took 29% last week.
Sarkozy had been criticised since his return for being distant, preoccupied and even bored. But his energetic leadership of the current campaign has restored some of his allure.
“If results match the forecasts, the right’s victory will help repair damage Sarkozy inflicted on himself with his weak, sleepy start,” political analyst Stephane Rozes, president of the CAP political consultancy in Paris, said.
“It will also signal he has appreciated the importance of the centrist vote, which he ignored in 2012 as he shifted his position farther to the right to rival the FN.”
The Socialists are heading in the opposite direction after a campaign that mostly focused on the threat of the far-right, and said little about key economic issues.
A boost in Hollande’s poll ratings after the January jihadist attacks in Paris proved short-lived.
“Everyone in the (Elysee) is scared he will be eliminated in the first round in 2017,” a presidential advisor told AFP, adding that Hollande had no choice but to continue unpopular austerity reforms that have alienated the public and many in his own party.
Gilles Finchelstein, a political strategist close to the Socialists painted an even darker picture this week in an article for L’Express magazine, saying “the left is in danger of dying, (and) risks becoming nothing more than a residual political force”.
However, Rozes said there is still hope for the Socialists, since voters approach local elections very differently from national contests.
“You can’t project results from one to what will occur in the others,” he said.
The same is true for the far-right, according to analysts, despite claims from Socialist Prime Minister Manuel Valls that Le Pen “is at the doors of power.”
“Yes, she’s had recent significant successes, particularly gaining the most votes in European elections,” political analyst Nonna Mayer said.
“(But) despite what you hear these days, it’s mad to imagine Marine Le Pen in the Elysee.”
French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen leaves the polling station after casting her ballot in Henin-Beaumont.
