All eyes on Le Pen as France's second regional elections begin
- 9 years ago
France's far-right National Front is aiming to win control of a region for the first time in its history in elections on Sunday, giving leader Marine Le Pen a launchpad for her presidential bid in 2017.
The anti-immigration FN topped the vote in six of 13 regions in last weekend's first round, capitalizing on the public's security fears in the wake of the jihadist attacks in which 130 people died.
But it faces an uphill battle to convert that performance into victory after the ruling Socialist Party withdrew its candidates from two key regions and urged their supporters there to back former president Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative Republicans.
President Francois Hollande's Socialists suffered their fourth electoral beating since coming to power in 2012 as voters punished their failure to cut France's stubbornly high jobless figures, but held up better than expected with 23.5 percent.
The anti-immigration FN topped the vote in six of 13 regions in last weekend's first round, capitalizing on the public's security fears in the wake of the jihadist attacks in which 130 people died.
But it faces an uphill battle to convert that performance into victory after the ruling Socialist Party withdrew its candidates from two key regions and urged their supporters there to back former president Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative Republicans.
President Francois Hollande's Socialists suffered their fourth electoral beating since coming to power in 2012 as voters punished their failure to cut France's stubbornly high jobless figures, but held up better than expected with 23.5 percent.