Quick takesFrench backlash, Egypt: no terrorism in plane crash, Libyan unity government
The French right-wing Front National failed to translate its gains in the first round of France’s regional elections a week ago into any victories in the election’s second round on Sunday; Angela Merkel, facing growing opposition from within her party to her open-door refugee policy, said she would limit number of refugees arriving in German; Turkish prime minister Erdogan says the Middle East “would benefit greatly from normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations; the two rival Libyan governments are set to sigh a historic peace accord in Morocco on Wednesday.
Israel (green) and Turkey Orange relative positions // Source: Marine LePen, leader of France's Front National party
France: Backlash against the backlash
The Front National, France’s far-right anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, and anti-Europe party has failed to win control of any of France’s regions (the equivalent of states in the United States) in the second and final round of local elections held yesterday. In the first round, held last weekend, FN gained historically high scores – 28 percent of the vote — scoring higher than either the Socialist Party of President Francois Hollande or Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative opposition – which was used to be called the UMP (for Union pour un mouvement populaire) but which, on 30 May this year, officially changed its name to Les Républicains.
The FN’s inability to translate its gains in the first round into victories in the second round was the result of tactical voting – that is, socialist voters voted for conservative candidates in regions where the conservative candidate had a better chance of defeating the FN’s candidate, and conservative candidate voted for socialist candidates in regions where the opposite was the case. The FN’s defeat was also the result of a much higher turn-out by voters who were scared by possible regional victories by what Prime Minister Manuel Valls described as an “anti-Semitic and racist” party which would bring France to its knees.
The FN leader, Marine Le Pen herself failed to capitalize on her high first-round score – she won 40 percent of the vote — in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, after the Socialist party pulled out of the race and urged its voters to vote for Sarkozy’s candidate Xavier Bertrand just to stop Le Pen.
Le Pen’s 26-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a rising FN star, was hoping to lead the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, but she, too, was kept out by the tactical voting of the left for another Sarkozy candidate, the hardline mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi.
