The French far right was beaten in major regional elections: exit polls Election news

The French far right has not won any region, while the centrist party of the government of President Emmanuel Macron has launched another poll regional elections participation has been disastrous again, according to surveys.

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) did not realize the main aim of winning the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur (PACA) region, which includes Marseille and Nice.

There the victory would give the RN control of a region for the first time and the party would see Le Pend as the best option to give credibility to claiming that he was fit for power before the 2022 presidential election.

A poll by the FIFG showed that the far right won 44.2% of the second vote in the PACA compared to 55.8 percent of the main Conservatives.

A second poll by Opinionway showed that the far right received 45% of the vote compared to 55 percent of its opponents.

In another competition in the northern Hauts-de-France region, the polls showed a center-right card led by Conservative Xavier Bertrand, another candidate for the presidential vote, to secure a comfortable victory for the far right.

Speaking after the results, Le Pen said: “Everything needs to be discussed today to restore our people’s desire to decide their future. I have decided more than ever to devote all my energy and my will to politics to be useful to the French.”

???? “Everything must be discussed today to give our countrymen a desire to decide their future. I am more than ever willing to put all my energy and will to rehabilitate politics so that it can be useful in the service of the French.” # Regional2021 pic.twitter.com/lUbE7hCeRC

– Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) June 27, 2021

Conservatives said the high performance of the center-right internationally meant it was a force for change.

“The far right has stopped in its tracks and we have quickly delayed,” Bertrand told supporters shortly after the polls closed.

“This result gives me the strength to seek the nation’s vote,” Bertrand said, referring to next year’s election.

If the projections are confirmed, they will raise doubts about Le Pen’s strategy to soften the image of the Eurosceptic anti-immigration party in an attempt to eat into the traditional right-wing vote.

However, analysts say the apparent failure of Le Pen and his party to win two of its strongholds should not be extrapolated to next year’s presidential election.

French journalist Pierre Haski told Al Jazeera that far-right voters typically go to larger numbers than voters in other sectors because they tend to be more motivated, but that didn’t happen in Sunday’s vote.

“[Le Pen] it was based on that gap between the motivation of his voters and the apathy of the rest of the electorate. And that hasn’t happened and he will have to answer questions within his party for reasons of such despair, ”Haski said.

Voters in 13 regions of the country had low turnout and voters typically have little affinity with the regional administrations responsible for promoting economic development, transportation and high school.

“I don’t know what the matter is,” Helene Debott, 31, told AFP news agency.

He said he would not vote in those polls but also in the presidential election. “There, it’s clear what’s at stake.”

Surveys have shown that most French people do not know who drives their regions and what entities do.

Failure for Macron

Exit polls were a pleasant read for Macron and his Republic on the Move (LREM) party, which confirmed that the party did not have local and regional roots despite controlling the presidency and the parliamentary chamber.

According to IFOP estimates, his party will get only seven percent of the vote across the country.

LREM leader Stanislas Guerini admitted that the election was a “disappointment for the majority of the presidency”.

French President Emmanuel Macron talks to a woman after voting at a polling station in Le Touquet while greeting local residents [Ludovic Marin/Pool/AFP]

Although several ministers were sent to the campaign and Macron himself embarked on a national tour – which at one point saw a crowd slap him – in some regions the party failed to get the required two 10 per cent.

The LREM has no chance of gaining control of a single region and is currently only five of the political parties in France.

The Socialists were on the verge of joining several regions, partly due to second-round pacts with the far-left French party Unbowed and Green Europe Ecology-Greens.