Marine Le Pen’s National Front Faces Reckoning After Loss in French Vote Abstentions among far-right leader’s backers in presidential vote harm party in parliamentary poll By William Horobin and Stacy Meichtry
https://www.wsj.com/articles/marine-le-pens-national-front-faces-reckoning-after-loss-in-french-vote-1497286027
PARIS—After knocking at the gates of power only a month ago, Marine Le Pen saw support for her far-right party crumble in Sunday’s first round of parliamentary elections, dashing its hopes of becoming France’s opposition party and an entrenched menace to the Europe Union.
President Emmanuel Macron’s fledgling party, La République en Marche, trounced mainstream parties across the political spectrum but forced the once-buoyant antiestablishment National Front in particular into a reckoning. Ms. Le Pen on Monday faced a final election result that showed the momentum that carried her in to last month’s second-round presidential vote had perished.
National Front candidates garnered only 13.2% of Sunday’s vote, compared with 13.6% in the last parliamentary election five years ago. Pollster Ipsos Sopra-Steria projected the party would end up with only between one and five seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, compared with between 415 and 455 for Mr. Macron’s party and its centrist ally.
What caused the collapse, pollsters and party officials say, is that the National Front’s primarily young, working-class base decided to sit out the parliamentary races. Around 57% of people who voted for Marine Le Pen in the presidential election stayed home for the parliamentary ballot, Ipsos Sopra-Steria said. The abstention rate among Macron voters was 38%.
The numbers stand in contrast to the National Front’s high expectations going into the 2017 races. In recent years, the party had drawn nearly a third of the vote in local, regional and European Parliament elections. CONTINUE AT SITE
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