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France elections: Far right on the move as Marine Le Pen’s National Front wins at least eight town halls in miserable night for President Hollande
France elections: President Hollande to fire PM after local election rout with far right on the move
(about 3 hours later)
The French far right captured at least eight town halls in local elections on Sunday night but President François Hollande’s Socialists avoided the electoral wipeout they had feared.
President François Hollande, reeling from calamitous results in local elections, is expected to fire his Prime Minister this week and to promise a "new start" to his stumbling presidency.
Marine Le Pen’s National Front (FN) will govern for the next six years in at least two substantial French towns on the Mediterranean coast – Fréjus and Béziers. She also looked likely to win at least six smaller towns in the South and in the North – as well as the forming mining town near Lille, Hénin-Beaumont, which she won outright in the first round of voting on the previous Sunday.
The change of government may come as soon as Monday as Mr Hollande seeks to show that he has heard the message of an angry electorate. The energetic, ambitious interior minister, Manuel Valls, 52, is favourite to succeed Jean-Marc Ayrault as Prime Minister.
This amounts to a trebling of the NF’s best previous result in municipal elections. The far right took three town halls in 1995 but currently controls none.
Rumours were swirling in Paris today, however, that Mr Holande may turn instead to the outgoing Paris mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, 63. This would give France its first openly gay Prime Minister.
All the same, Ms Le Pen’s triumph was less complete than she had hoped for. The National Front fell short of winning three glittering prizes – Avignon and Perpignan in the south and Forbach in Lorraine - where their candidates had topped the first round poll last Sunday.
Ségolène Royal, Mr Hollande's former partner, and the mother of his four children, is expected to return to national government as part of the reshuffle.
Apart from Frejus and Beziers (both over 50,000 in population), the FN’s victories on Sunday were in relatively small places: Hayange and Villers-Cotterêts in the industrial north and Beaucaire, Le Luc, Le Pontet et Cogolin in the South.
As the dust settled after the second round of municipal elections on Sunday, Mr Hollande's Socialist Party s found itself ejected from power in at least 140 cities and towns. The centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) was the clear winner nationwide but the far-right National Front consolidated its first round breakthough and will take control of 11 towns.
In Fréjus, riot police were dispatched to stand guard in front of the campaign headquarters of NF party member David Rachline, after people gathered to demonstrate against his victory.
Although most of these towns are small, this will give Marine Le Pen's anti-EU, anti-immigration, anti-free trade and pro-Russian party its biggest ever beach-head in local government. The previous high-water mark for NF control of town-halls was, briefly, four in the late 1990s.
Left-wing voters, who had deserted the unpopular President Hollande last week, flocked back to the polls in many towns and cities on Sunday. The Left hung onto power in most of the biggest cities, including Paris, where the deputy mayor Anne Hidalgo won comfortably. The Socialist mayors in Strasbourg and Dijon – who had appeared on the verge of defeat last weekend - scraped home.
Of the 11 new NF towns, only three are of any size, Fréjus and Béziers on the Mediterranean coast and Hénin-Beaumont in the industrial north.
All the same, the main opposition party, the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) scored a significant victory by capturing Toulouse in the south west. The UMP and its allies looked likely to caputure up to 100 towns large and small, including many traditionally run by the Left such as Belfort, Reims, Saint-Etienne, Roubaix, Quimper and Pau. Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, is the new Paris Mayor
FN candidates also triumphed in Mantes-la-Ville, west of Paris, Hayange and Villers-Cotterets in the north and Beaucaire, Le Luc, Le Pontet and Cogolin in the South. The Far Right also won a "district town hall" in a racially-mixed northern part of the city of Marseille.
The government spokeswoman, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem admitted that the results remained “bad for the Left.” She said: “We are paying the price of not always clearly explaining where we are going. The reforms we have made have been slow to show their results. We have to accept that people are suffering.”
Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, is the new Paris Mayor There were some consolation prizes for Mr Hollande's Socialists, including the comfortable victory of Mr Delanoe's deputy, Anne Hidalgo, 53, in Paris. Ms Hidalgo, who becomes the first woman to run the French capital, defeated by 53 per cent to 47 per cent the centre-right candidate, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet.
With unemployment frozen at just under 10 per cent and his popularity at a record low, President Hollande had expected bad results in the first round last week. He had not reckoned on a widespread collapse of the Socialist vote and a breakthrough by the NF, which topped the poll in a score of places.
The Left also hung onto power in several of France's largest cities - Lyon, Lille, Strasbourg, Nantes, Rennes and Dijon. It lost control of scores of others to the UMP, including the vibrant city of Toulouse in the south west and Caen in lower Normandy and a raft of towns traditionally run by the Left, including Belfort, Reims, Saint-Etienne, Roubaix, Quimper and Pau.
Before Sunday’s second round, he hoped that Left-leaning voters would put aside their national grievances and turn out en masse to prevent their towns from swinging to the Right or, worse, the Far Right. His prayers were partly answered.
"There is no getting away from it: this vote is a defeat for the government ... and I take my part of the blame," the Prime Minister, Mr Ayrault said late last night. Although the anger expressed by the electorate was mostly directed at President Hollande, Mr Ayrault is expected to perform this week the traditonal sacrificial role of prime ministers in the French Fifth Republic (post-1958).
The overall turnout, of around 61.5 per cent, broke the new record of 63.5 per cent set last weekend for the lowest ever participation in local elections in France. But the turn-out in many of the key towns was higher than last week.
His government has been discredited by scandals, personal jealousies and U-turns but has, for the most part, faithfully followed the muddle policy lines of Mr Hollande since he came to power almost two years ago.
Mr Hollande plans to reshuffle the government this week to show that he has “heard the message” of the electorate. The Elysée Palace let it be known on Friday that the survival of the Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault depended on the scale of the Socialist rout on Sunday.
Swing voters and the middle classes have been angered by tax rises, especially the abolition of President Nicolas Sarkozy's "tax holiday" for overtime work. Poorer and left-wing voters have been infuriated by Mr Hollande's move in January to a more market-oriented, budget-cutting economic policy - even if it has not been implemented yet. Everyone is angry with Mr Hollande's failure to deliver his promised "reversal of the trend" of rising unemployment by the end of last year.
Given the reduced scale of losses, Mr Ayrault may survive. If he goes, the ambitious, energetic, young interior minister Manuel Valls is favourite to replace him.
A change of Prime Minister will not mean another change of direction, the Elysée Palace insists. Mr Hollande is determined to push ahead with his new, more market-oriented - he prefers the phrase Social Democratic - approach to economic reform.
Mr Valls is, however, on the right wing of the Socialist party. Since the disaffection with the government is mostly on the left of the party, Mr Hollande may decide that promoting Mr Valls would be seen as gesture of defiance, rather than a recognition of grass-roots anger and distress.
The new Prime Minister will, howcver, be expcted to find some way of responding to the anger of the left-wing of the Socialist Party by devising tax breaks and other concessioms for the less well off.
President Hollande is paying the price of a laborious and scandal-strewn first two years in power. Swing voters and the middle classes were angered last year by tax rises, especially the abolition of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s “tax holiday” for overtime work.
Poorer and left-wing voters have been infuriated by Mr Hollande’s move in January to a more market-oriented, state-cutting economic policy – even if it has not been implemented yet. Everyone is angry with Mr Hollande’s failure to deliver his promised “reversal of the trend” of rising unemployment by the end of last year.
Beyond these policy failures, Mr Hollande’s is also paying the price of scandals such as the revelation last year that his millionaire budget minister, Jerome Cahuzac, was a tax cheat who had an illegal bank account in Swizerland.
The revelation this January that the President was cheating on his partner Valérie Trierweiler with the actress Julie Gayet has not significantly damaged his popularity. His ratings (22-25 per cent) were already the lowest ever recorded.
