France's mainstream parties scramble to counter the shock breakthrough of the far-right National Front

The shock breakthrough of the far right National Front in French regional elections has left the mainstream parties scrambling to counter the advance. Just weeks after the terrorist attacks in Paris, the ruling Socialists and the conservative Republicans find themselves for the first time trailing the National Front of Marine Le Pen in six out of 13 regions. A crucial second round of voting takes place next Sunday. The Socialists have already called on their candidates who came in third place in battleground seats to withdraw, to enable strategic voting to block the National Front. National Front leader Marine Le Pen told supporters: “What we represent the day after this election is a real breath of freedom, independence and uprightness. “We have the conviction that we will not make any deals, which is different to what our adversaries do. And that’s how we’ll continue in the second round.” Having to bow out of the race in some seats and leave a duel between the National Front and the opposition Republicans is a blow for the French President, Francois Hollande. His popularity has been rising recently, but that has not translated into votes. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, the leader of the Republicans, has already ruled out any withdrawal of candidates, or mergers with other parties, to block the far right. Marine Le Pen has now declared the National Front the country’s top party after it scored the most votes nationally, scoring almost 28 percent of the vote. French front page reaction to the result:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));The shock breakthrough of the far right National Front in French regional elections has left the mainstream parties scrambling to counter the advance.Posted by euronews on Monday, December 7, 2015