France’s anti-immigration National Front (FN) appears to be riding on a wave of popularity six months ahead of municipal elections, lifting the party as it kicks off its annual summer conference on September 13 in the southeast city of Marseille, reports FRANCE 24.
A new survey revealed Thursday that the FN’s approval rating among French voters had risen by four percentage points in as many months, while the popularity of France’s two mainstream parties had headed in the opposite direction.
The study by French polling firm CSA found that the FN was on pace to win 16% of votes in the first round of the March 2014 municipal ballots. The ruling Socialist Party (PS) was forecast to win 40% support, or two points less than in its previous survey in March, the company noted.
During the same period, former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) slipped three points, and is now on target to win 35% of ballots.
While the FN’s predicted election score of 16% seems low compared to that of its left-and right-wing rivals, that figure represents a national average. Pollsters predict the far-right party will claim much higher scores in specific election battlegrounds, and head to numerous run-offs for city governments next year.
In France’s 2011 local cantonal elections, the party led by Marine Le Pen reached the second round in 394 cantons, or one-fifth of all contested councils. But echoing election results in recent years, the FN eventually came up almost empty-handed that year. It won just two of the 2,000 cantonal seats up for grabs across the country.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.