Marine Le Pen’s far-right party has suffered a serious electoral blow when it failed to win a regional election in its stronghold in the south of France, reports The Guardian.
The Rassemblement National (RN) had pinned its last chances on taking the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region (PACA) after emerging victorious from last week’s first-round vote, although by a small margin.
However, an alliance of rival parties to form a “republican front” against the RN – including the withdrawal of the Socialist party and left-wing alliance candidate – prevented the far right taking the region.
Sunday’s result was a final bitter disappointment for the RN, which had been predicted to do well in at least five regions in the first-round vote last Sunday. In the end, the RN came first only in PACA, and then only by a narrow margin.
Exit polls suggested that the Les Républicains candidate in PACA, Renaud Muselier, had polled a convincing 56.6% of votes against the RN’s Thierry Mariani’s 43.4%.
Afterwards, Le Pen said local democracy was suffering a “profound crisis” and criticised the “unnatural alliances” made between political rivals to confound a RN victory and “prevent us from showing that we can run a region”.
In a brief but defiant post-election speech, Le Pen added that the abstention rate showed a “discontentment” among electors that was a “major signal for all the political class and society”.