PARIS // One is a pragmatist: a 47-year-old lawyer by training who has steered France’s far-right National Front (FN) from pariah status to mainstream.
The other is an ideologue: her 25-year-old niece, a photogenic Roman Catholic traditionalist with a stance on abortion, homosexuality and Islam that critics say is dangerous or sectarian.
On Sunday, Marine Le Pen and Marion Marechal-Le Pen – respectively the daughter and grand-daughter of the FN’s firebrand founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen – established themselves as major players in France’s political landscape.
The first round of regional elections placed the FN on track to break the grip of socialists and conservatives, cementing the party’s grassroots’ rise across the country.
The FN came first with around 28 per cent of the vote nationwide and topped the list in at least six of 13 regions.
The right-wing grouping including former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s party took 27 per cent, while the ruling socialist party and its allies took 23.5 per cent.
The polls were held under tight security following France’s worst-ever terror attacks, which have thrust the FN’s anti-immigration and often Islamophobic message to the fore, with many French losing faith in mainstream parties after years of double-digit unemployment and a sense of deepening inequality. Around half the 45 million registered voters took part in the polls.
Following FN’s strong showing, the main parties on the right and left must now decide whether to come to an agreement to try to stop the FN from winning control at regional level in next Sunday’s second-round run-offs.
The socialists of president Francois Hollande have already begun withdrawing candidates, but Mr Sarkozy, leader of the centre-right Republicans, ruled out any tactical alliance.
The far-right has been steadily gaining traction in France over the past few years as Ms Le Pen has continued its strident nationalism, while purging some of the party’s least savoury elements.
In the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a rustbelt bastion of the socialists who rule at national level, final estimates gave Ms Le Pen more than 40 per cent of the first-round vote.
Victory in the second round on December 13 would give her a springboard for her bid to be president in 2017.
Ms Marechal-Le Pen, meanwhile, also scored above 40 per cent in final estimates for the vast Provence-Alpes-Cote-d’Azur (Paca) region in the south, placing her on course for a landmark win next week.
Breaking the symbolic 40 per cent mark in their respective regions shattered previous records for the party as they tapped into voter anger over a stagnant economy and security fears linked to Europe’s refugee crisis.
Both women, however, face an uphill battle to clinch the run-off vote after the socialist party withdrew candidates in the key regions and called on its supporters to back conservative rivals.
But Ms Marechal-Le Pen seemed unfazed, taking to Twitter to thank voters. “Merci!” she wrote, before adding: “We’re ready!”
Any party which secures 10 per cent backing in the first round has the right to present candidates in the second round, due next Sunday.
The FN’s repeated linking of immigration with terrorism has also helped it climb in the polls since the gun and suicide bombing assaults in Paris.
When it emerged that at least two of the attackers had entered Europe posing as migrants, the FN aggressively pushed a message of “we told you so”.
The French electoral system has tended to keep the far-right from power, as mainstream voters ganged up against the FN in second rounds.
But the party has been on a roll, taking first place in European and local polls over the past two years.
* Agence France-Presse
