France’s far-right National Front re-elected its leader Marine Le Pen with a 100 per cent mandate on Sunday at a party congress marked by closer ties to Russia and the rise of a new generation of the Le Pen dynasty.Robert Pratta/Reuters
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has hailed the defeat of the far- right National Front in first-round local elections, while minimizing the significance of the third-place finish of his own Socialist party.
The National Front was second in Sunday's vote with 25 per cent, behind the conservative UMP party and its allies with 29 per cent. Socialists and their allies had 21.5 per cent, according to the Interior Ministry's official results.
Valls, speaking Monday on radio RTL, said he was "pleased in some way" to observe that the National Front's support was not as high as expected.
He called for all leftist candidates, including communists and environmentalists, to unite with the Socialists for the second round next Sunday.
"We will continue to fight" against Marine Le Pen's National Front, Valls said.
President Francois Hollande's Socialist party, deeply unpopular after the government's failure to turn around France's economy, has lost every election since coming into office in 2012.
The results mean the second round will often be a race between the UMP and the National Front. In places where the Socialist candidates are eliminated —about a quarter of the second-round elections— Valls called for voters to choose anyone running against a National Front candidate.
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the UMP, urged supporters to abstain in the second round if a conservative candidate wasn't running.