Twenty-four hours after France’s mainstream parties saw off the immediate threat of the far-right Front National, French prime minister Manuel Valls vowed to draw up a series of measures to combat the economic “state of emergency”, including rampant unemployment.
Valls said finding work for the jobless was the “priority of priorities” and said he would meet with all the newly elected regional heads of all political parties to find a way forward.
“We have to change our behaviour,” Valls told France 2 television. “We have to give people something they want to vote for, not just against.”
Speaking after an historic rise in support for the FN, led by Marine Le Pen in the two-round regional elections, the prime minister said politicians could not continue as if nothing had happened.
“We cannot go backwards. We had been warned about the threat from the extreme right,” he said. “The Front National is still there and represents a danger, notably for the major election, the presidential.”
Valls’ television appearance came at the end of a day when France’s mainstream political parties rallied to come up with a response to the far right’s unprecedented election gains.
He announced no concrete measures, but said the government would be concentrating on the “essential”: creating jobs and apprenticeships and offering training to those without qualifications. He said the measures would be announced in January. “We have to act quickly,” he said.
Politicians of all ideologies agree the regional elections mark a watershed, and that tactical voting is not a long-term solution to keeping Le Pen’s party out of power.
The governing Socialists (PS) and the centre-right Republicans (LR) also woke up to the need to address the root causes of voter despair, including unyieldingly high unemployment, the economic crisis and a deep sense of dissatisfaction with what is seen as an out-of-touch political class, especially in rural France.
After what was described as an “extraordinary meeting” of LR, leader Nicolas Sarkozy – who is hoping to be the party’s presidential candidate in 2017 - announced a shake-up of his political team.
Emmanuelle Cosse, head of Europe Ecology – the Greens, called for a complete overhaul of France’s political system after what she said was a massive rejection by voters. Having come “so close to catastrophe”, Cosse said no side could be happy with the election result.
The first-round vote on 6 December saw the FN make impressive gains across France. For politicians who had vowed “never again” after FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen caused a national trauma by winning his way into the second round of the presidential elections in 2002, there was a sense of déjà vu.
“I will never forget the results, especially those of the first round,” said Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, head of the PS, on Sunday evening.
LR took seven of the country’s regional councils and the PS five. One week after French media warned the FN was “at the gates of power”, it was evident that the door had not been completely slammed in the far right’s face. With just over 27% of the national vote – amounting to 6.82 million voters – the FN could boast 358 local council seats compared with 9.2% of the electorate and 118 seats in 2010.
The withdrawal of the PS candidate in three regions where the FN was well ahead after the first round, with the advice that supporters should form a “republican bloc” to keep out the far right, allowed Le Pen to claim her party was the victim of electoral sabotage.
Sarkozy has announced a party conference in February, and pledged the party to reflecting on the issues “that anguish the French”. These, he said, were Europe, the economy, unemployment, crime and the question of “French identity”, all themes close to the FN’s heart.
Bruno Le Maire, an LR presidential primaries candidate, told France Inter he did not believe the answer was for the centre-right to tougher its stance to attract FN voters.
“This morning we have political choices to make. Is the solution to harden our approach? This strategy will drive us to the wall, make us smaller, turn us into a sect. I hope my political family will turn to the French and not turn in on itself.”
One of the immediate victims of Sarkozy’s party reshuffle was Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, former minister and vice president of LR, who had criticised Sarkozy’s refusal to order the LR candidate to withdraw in areas where the vote was split. NKM, as she is known, said it was an “old Stalinist idea … to believe that the party is strengthened by being purged”.
La Croix newspaper summed up the general mood with its headline, “Regionals: defeat for all”.
It wrote: “No party can claim a decisive victory after the regional elections. Not the Front National. Not Les Républicains, nor the Parti Socialiste.”
