By Canadian Press

Exit polls: French far right beaten in regional elections

Jun 27, 2021 | 12:09 PM

PARIS (AP) — Polling agency estimations indicate that mainstream candidates have delivered a stinging setback to France’s far right in regional elections on Sunday, thwarting its hopes of winning control of a region for the first time.

The Ifop polling agency estimated that the far right National Rally barely surpassed 20% of the vote nationally, trailing both the mainstream right and the combined weight of green and leftist candidates.

Polling agency estimates also suggest that the National Rally was roundly beaten in the southeast, in the region that had been seen as its best chance of securing a breakthrough victory in the regional balloting.

If confirmed by official results, the National Rally’s failure to win any of mainland France’s 12 regions threatens to slow the momentum of its candidate, Marine Le Pen, in her campaign for the presidential elections next year.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

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PARIS (AP) — A decisive, second round of voting in France’s regional elections on Sunday was being scrutinized as a litmus test of whether the anti-immigration far right is gaining in acceptability before the French presidential election next year.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, has spent a decade trying to cast off the extremist reputation that made the party anathema to many French voters in its previous guise as the National Front. A failure to win control of a region Sunday would mark a stinging setback for the rebranded party.

Voter interest was tepid, at best. Turnout nationwide was less than 30% by late afternoon. Among the few who cast ballots, some lamented that young voters, in particular, appeared to be squandering the last voting opportunity before the 2022 presidential poll.

“It’s shameful,” said Suzette Lefèvre, a retiree who voted in Saint-Quentin in northern France. “Our parents fought for us for this and people aren’t following suit.”

Philippe Corbonnois, another retiree who turned out in Saint-Quentin, opined that young people “maybe don’t believe in politics.”

A record-low turnout of 33% in the first round of voting on June 20 proved particularly damaging for the National Rally and Le Pen’s hopes of securing a regional breakthrough to bolster her 2022 presidential campaign. The party hasn’t previously won a region.

Polls had suggested that Le Pen’s party had some momentum, with legitimate ambitions to win control of leadership councils in one or more of France’s 12 mainland regions.

But the apathy last week also infected National Rally voters. Only in one region, in the southeast, did the party finish first. Its candidates elsewhere were all relegated to second place or lower, with some openly abandoning all hopes of winning in round two.

A major question in the runoff was whether voters would band together to keep Le Pen’s party out of power as they did in the past, repulsed by her anti-immigration and anti-European Union populism and the racist, antisemitic image that clung to the National Front, which was founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The party dominated the first round of the last regional elections in 2015, but collapsed in the runoff as parties and voters joined together against it.

The National Rally’s best chance of a first-time regional victory was in the southeastern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. Its candidate there, Thierry Mariani, was in a tight race with a mainstream conservative incumbent, Renaud Muselier.

Results were expected after the last polls close at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT; 2 p.m. EDT). The left currently heads five of the 12 mainland regions while the mainstream right runs seven.

The Associated Press