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Marine Le Pen urged French voters to make history on Sunday by giving the anti-immigration party Rassemblement National control of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in the south, in the last national elections before running against Emmanuel Macron to next year’s presidential vote.
His candidate for Provence, Thierry Mariani – who has courted the controversy supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and defending the confiscation of Crimea by Russia, he came out ahead in the first round of voting in the regional elections a week ago and hopes to achieve victory in the second. The RN has never gained control of a French region, although it has been successful in local elections.
“History can be made on Sunday. Vote! “Mariani he said on Twitter. After a first round in which only a third of the French electorate went to the polls and in particular RN voters were left out, Le Pen also urged his followers to “mobilize like never before: don’t steal the election.”
But the far right RN did worse than expected in the first round in the 13 main French regions and in Mariani faces a united “republican front.” in Provence, which will try to keep him out of power after the main green left candidate withdrew and threw the support of his alliance behind center-right incumbent Renaud Muselier.
Last week, an Ifop-Fiducial opinion poll suggested Muselier would win a 51% to 49% victory in the two-way contest.
The clear winners of the first round were the consolidated French parties of left and center-right, the Socialists and Les Républicains. They were shattered by the unexpected victories of Macron’s presidential and legislative elections four years ago, but are now likely to retain control of most or all of the regions they already govern, although regional powers are largely limited. in transport policy and education.
The French Greens (Europe Écologie-Les Verts) have also performed well in the last election, and hope that Macron’s former supporter Matthieu Orphelin and his left-wing allies can take control of the region. from the Pays de la Loire to the west of the center-right.
La République en Marche de Macron, a centrist party created in 2016 to push him to power the following year, did even worse than expected in the first round, winning only a tenth of the votes cast and failing to even qualify. for the second round in four regions.
He will try to reactivate the weakened party and is expected to announce a government reshuffle in the coming weeks, according to senior officials. One said Macron and his advisers had to learn the lessons from the results of the first round. “It’s a real alarm bell and we should draw the consequences.”
In the center-right, which has provided the majority of French presidents in Charles de Gaulle’s fifth Republic, spirits have been raised by the strong turnout of candidates in regional elections so far.
Xavier Bertrand, in the northern region of the Hauts-de-France challenged predictions and crushed his RN rivals – boasted of “breaking his jaws” – while Laurent Wauquiez in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in the southeast and Valérie Pécresse in the Ile-de-France also came out ahead.
Political analysts say that with each of the three regional leaders, and others with presidential ambitions, the main risk for the center-right is that the movement cannot agree on a common candidate to challenge Macron and Le Pen. next year.
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