News
Second round of French regional elections: historic changes coming?
Pro-autonomy-pro-independence alliance hopes to win for the first time ever Assembly of Corsica vote · Opinion polls say National Front close to emerge as largest party in three regions
Robust options for the National Front in three regions. Marine Le Pen's party has solid victory chances in Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy, the Occitan region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, and the Eastern macro-region of Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardennes. In all three, the FN was the largest party in the first round of the regional elections, on Sunday 6th. Victory will be contested solely by FN and centre-right Les Republicans in the two former regions, as the socialist candidates decided to step down from the race. But in the Eastern macro-region, Socialist candidate Jean-Pierre Masseret has decided to go on, so victory will be contested by three lists there.
Despite FN's good prospects, it could well happen that the party is finally left with no victory. Recent polls say in all the three regions aforementioned Les Republicains are a step ahead -some 2 to 6 percentage points- in voting intention.
For its part, Alsatian pro-autonomy party Unser Land -which came third in the first round in Alsace- called their supporters to cast blank votes in the second round as a way to demand "the immediate withdrawal of the territorial reform," i.e. to put pressure on the French government to walk back from its plan to merge Alsace with Lorraine and Champagne-Ardennes.
Corsica: "A rendezvous with history." Gilles Simeoni said this week that Corsica has a "rendezvous with history" on Sunday 13th. Certainly Simeoni's list -For Corsica, a merger of pro-autonomy and pro-independence parties- has a chance to win for the first time ever the Corsican Assembly election. The joint manifesto of the two main trends of Corsican nationalism says their AMs will pursue the recognition of Corsican as an official language and the devolution of legislative power to Corsican bodies of self-government.
Another three lists will be challenging For Corsica's attempt. One of them is led by current Corsican president Paul Giacobbi, bringing together most leftist pro-French parties in the island. Another one is topped by Jose Rossi, and merges two pro-French centre-right candidacies. And the third one is the National Front's. It is likely that none of the lists obtains an absolute majority, but emerging as the largest party is crucial because it grants a 9 seat premium.
A progressive alliance in the Occitan-Catalan region. Socialist candidate Carole Delga is well placed to achieve victory in the macro-region emerged after the merger of former regions Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon. Delga's Socialists have agreed to hold on a joint list for the second round with Gerard Onesta's Green alliance, which also includes the pro-autonomy Occitan Party. The big stumbling block for Delga's victory appears to be Louis Alliot's National Front list, which in the first round was the largest party in the region. Les Republicains candidate Dominique Reynié is also running for the second round. According to an opinion poll released earlier this week, Delga leads the election race, with Aliot and Reynié 8 and 21 points behind.
Le Drian hoping to keep Brittany under Socialists' fold. French Defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is the main contender to the second round in Brittany. In the first round, the Socialists earned a solid advantage over Les Republicains candidate Marc Le Fur -11 points behind- and FN candidate Gilles Pennelle -17 points. Pro-autonomy alliance Oui La Bretagne has given no explicit voting recommendation for the second round, but their leaders have suggested they do not want their first round voters to support the FN.
The left likely to win Western Occitania-Northern Basque Country region. A Socialist-Green agreement in the Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes macro-region makes it likely that Western Occitan lands and the Northern Basque Country will be retained by the left. Les Republicains and the National Front will be challenging the progressive alliance.
In the rest of the French territory the centre-left, centre-right and the National Front lists will also be fighting for victory, except in overseas territories. Opinin polls predict a close race between the center-right and center-left in Normandy and the Paris region. Centre-left lists appear to have the upper hand in the Centre and the Pays de la Loire regions, the latter including a historically Breton department.