Sarkozy supporters head off National Front

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy. Photo / AP

Confounding many expectations, mainstream conservatives prevented the far-right National Front from breaking through in local elections seen as a test of faith in France's battered political system.

In the first of two rounds, a centre-right bloc headed by former President Nicolas Sarkozy led the pack with about a third of the vote, according to exit polls.

Left-wing parties and the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe National Front (FN), each had about a quarter of the vote. The outcome enabled the FN to claim it was continuing its onward march, by duplicating its score last year in elections to the EU - a shock that prompted anguished scrutiny of the country's traditional politics. But the result fell short of the 30 per cent mark that opinion pollsters had been predicting, and the FN itself had predicted it would emerge as the "first party of France".

"Tonight, the far right, even if it is too high, is not France's leading political party," Prime Minister Manuel Valls, a Socialist, said tartly.

Sarkozy declared that his bloc was the true voice of France's conservatives and moderates. He is staking much on the cantonal (local) elections to power his return to the presidency in 2017.

FN leader Marine Le Pen, who has been striving to cleanse the party of a reputation for xenophobia and anti-semitism, said her supporters had triumphed over a "campaign of hatred" stirred by Valls. "We had no previous local network - until now, we had just one councillor out of 4000 nationwide."

Mainstream concern about the FN had been driven by fears of voter indifference, since the councils are invisible in most people's lives in France. Pollsters put turnout at 50 per cent, compared with 42 per cent at last year's ballot for the European Parliament. More voters may have cast their ballots than expected because of the outpouring of sentiment in response to the terrorist attacks in January.

But it could be his Socialists who will be the big losers when the runoff vote, gathering the top candidates from the first round, takes place next Monday. The runoff is often decided by haggling between parties between the rounds. They cobble together alliances under which they agree to withdraw candidates in less promising constituencies in order to win in others where they stand a better chance. The Socialists have failed to put together a tactical coalition with other left-wing groups. As a result the runoff will mean the left-wing vote will be fragmented. The Socialists have called on supporters to vote for the mainstream conservatives in places where there is no Socialist candidate. As a result, the conservative bloc gets a boost from leftwing voters.