First round of French regional elections held last Sunday showed irregular results for parties in favour of sovereignty of the different nations under French administration. Corsican nationalist parties, which are divided into two different political forces, got the best results with 28% of teh votes and will go for a second round.

Pro-autonomy list Femu a Corsica obtained a particularly resounding success. The list is led by Gilles Simeoni (Inseme per a Corsica) and Jean-Cristophe Angelini (U Partitu di a Nazione Corsa) and got 18% of the share which made Femu a Corsica come second after Camille Rocca Serra's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which obtained a 21%. As for leftist independence supporters, Jean-Guy Talamoni's Corsica Libera achieved 9%, 2 points over the 7 % threshold necessary to run for a second round next Sunday. Joint votes for Corsican pro-sovereignty parties add up to almost 28%, a better share than the one they got 6 years ago when they formed a unitary list called Unione Naziunale (UN). UN dissolved in the middle of the last political term.

Pro-sovereignty parties also performed well in Brittany, where the list Europe Ecology, made up of the Greens, several independent candidates and the Breton Democratic Union -a leftist and pro-autonomy party- won 12 % of the vote and will remain in a second round. It is likely that they join the Socialist Party to stand against the rightist UMP.

Nous te Ferons Bretagne, a list headed by the Breton Party (Parti Breton), won 4.3 % of the share and won't be able to contest in a second round.

Elections were also held in the overseas departments of Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique and Reunion. Results of pro-sovereignty forces in Martinique were particularly remarkable. There, support for Serge Letchimy, leader of pro-autonomist Together for a New Martinique obtained 40% of the vote. He will have to contend the outgoing pro-independence president Alfred Marie-Jeanne in a second round, whose party Patriotes Martiniquais et Sympathisants got the support of 32% of the voters. Unlike the rest of overseas departments and regions, Sarkozy's metropolitan UMP came third in Martinique, only 5% above the 5% threshold needed to go through a second round. Madeleine de Grandmaison's Rassemblement Démocratique pour la Martinique, another pro-autonomy party, came last with a 6.8% of the share. It may join one of the major parties in a second round. A pact with Marie-Jeanne would result in a tie between pro-autonomy and pro-independence supporters.

Further information:

• Corsematin.com: C'est sûr, l'électorat insulaire est en train de changer le décor
• Le Telegramme: Régionales en Bretagne. Négociations tendues entre Le Drian et Hascoët
• RFO Martinique: REGIONALES. Serge Letchimy vire en tête
• MónDivers: Èxit del nacionalisme cors, que frega el 28% dels vots a la primera volta