Global Post: 1. France turned to the right

The National Front, an anti-immigrant, ultra-nationalist, euro-skeptic hard-line conservative party (they don’t like to be called extreme right any more) scored its best-ever result in France’s municipal elections on Sunday. “It’s the end of two-party politics in France,” proclaimed party leader Marine Le Pen. “The National Front has arrived as a major independent political force at the national and local level.” Well, maybe. The Front got 7 percent of the vote across the country, compared to 43 percent for President Francois Hollande’s ruling Socialists and 48 percent for the center-right. Of France’s 36,000 municipalities, the Front only captured one outright — the former coal mining town of Henin-Beaumont, a long time Socialist stronghold — although it will go into next week’s second round leading in several others. Traditionally however, French voters tend to revert back to the mainstream parties in the second round, having registered their dissatisfaction with a first round protest. Despite those reservations, the result is a major boost for Le Pen that came despite her father — the party’s founder and figurehead Jean-Marie Le Pen — having heaped praise on Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Crimea during a TV interview last week. The party can expect to do well again in European Parliament elections in late May, when many believe voters will again vent their unhappiness about the mainstream’s inability to cut unemployment and boost the economy.

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