The far-right Front National’s highest profile figures stand to lose their regional election fight, latest polls suggest, as Socialist voters prepare to vote en masse for the mainstream Right to block the FN rise, reports The Telegraph.
The FN had a historic showing in the first round of elections last Sunday, in which it clinched pole position in six regions and took the largest slice of the national vote.
The far-right party, whose popular figures include leader Marine le Pen and her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, could end up with one or no regions at all in the run-off, if current polls prove accurate.
According to a TNS Sofres survey, Xavier Bertrand, a former labour minister under Nicolas Sarkozy could pip Ms Le Pen at the post in the northern Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardy region, despite being trounced in round one, clinching 53 per cent of the vote to her 47 per cent.
On Thursday, Ms Le Pen said she would bring a lawsuit against the French state over the situation in Calais, where thousands of migrants are camped in hopes of reaching Britain.
She claimed on BFM television that the port city had deteriorated to the point where the mayor was issuing passes to residents to get home - a claim the mayor quickly denied.
She added that she would continue to be a presence the French government could not ignore: "I will ruin the government's life, you hear me?" she said. "Every day of the week, every minute of the day, they will hear about me."
Meanwhile, Ms Maréchal-Le Pen, a 26-year old MP who toes a more overtly xenophobic line than her aunt, could fall foul of Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice.
Mr Estrosi mustered a much lower than expected score in round one in the southern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region but the latest poll suggests Mr Estrosi will win by taking 54 per cent of the vote compared to his FN rival's 46 per cent.
In both regions, the Socialist candidate who finished third in round one has pulled out of the run-off and called on supporters to block the FN by voting for the centre-Right candidates running for Mr Sarkozy’s The Republicans party.
According to the polls, higher than expected numbers of Socialist sympathisers – more than three quarters - are prepared to return to the ballot box to vote centre-Right.
The mayor of Nice has a fairly hard-right discourse. He has called for internment centres for all suspected Islamist radicals and spoken of a “fifth column” in France of enemies within.
He has since softened his line, saying he is the voice of “resistance” and French Republican values.
Speaking of Mr Bertrand, Emmanuel Rivière of TNS Sofres, said: “Left-wing voters are very committed to blocking the FN and voting for him."
Read more of this report from The Telegraph.
See also:
French regional elections as they happened plus final results