France's regional elections: Le Pen wins historic result in the first round

The party has topped the vote in at least six out of 13 regions, according to pollsters' projections. "Don't let the Republic go backwards!" Le Pen herself is poised to take power in a key northern region, which Libération notes could pave the way for her to become a front-runner in France's presidential elections in 2017. "We'll see", she said.

Even winning one regional council would be a major victory for the FN which has never had control of such constituencies.

French racism watchdog SOS Racisme has also launched a campaign to get people to vote against the NF.

After a string of electoral highs, the FN broke another glass ceiling on Sunday, boosted by voters' fears over the Paris attacks, immigration linked to the refugee crisis and record unemployment.

Although a shift toward the policies of the National Front Party had been in place for several years now, the November 13th attacks hastened the process, and will continue to do so as France prepares to vote on a new president in 2017.

The PS candidate in a third region, Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in eastern France, rejected a call from party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis to withdraw in the second round. The Socialist Party has already announced that it will not compete in Nord-Pas-de Calais-Picardie and Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur to enable its voters to support the center-right.

A possible Republican-Socialist alliance to limit FN gains in the second round had previously been mooted, but Mr. Sarkozy, the former president, ruled this out on Sunday.

Marion Maréchal Le Pen, niece of the party leader, last week said Muslims could not be French because they rejected France's "customs and morals" rooted in Christianity. In the east of the country, Jean-Pierre Masseret, the PS candidate who came third with 15.5% of the vote, compared with 25.3% for the center-right candidate and 37.6% for the FN, has refused to bow out of the second round.

"I believe that the National Front's incredible results are the revolt of the people against the elite", she said Monday on  radio.

There is a surly anti-establishment mood in France, of which the National Front- a quintessential anti-establishment party - is taking full advantage. The head of the French employers' group, Medef, warned before the regional elections that her proposals were the exact opposite of what the country needed.

The FN's repeated linking of immigration with terrorism has also helped it climb in the polls since the gun and suicide bombing assaults in Paris.

 

After election, Le Pen assessed the result as "historic, extraordinary result" and stated that "It is a magnificent result that we will treat with humility and a profound sense of responsibility".