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Vitória
histórica de Marine Le Pen nas eleições regionais
Frente
Nacional, de Marine le Pen, ganha primeira volta das eleições
regionais em França. França em choque: nacionalistas vencem ao
nível nacional e podem conquistar presidência de diversas regiões.
Cozinha
eleitoral tenta travar nova vitória na segunda volta
DANIEL RIBEIRO,
CORRESPONDENTE EM PARIS
As primeiras
estimativas sobre a primeira volta das eleições regionais francesas
apontam para a vitória da Frente Nacional (FN), de Marine le Pen.
De acordo com
projeções nacionais sobre os resultados, a FN é agora o primeiro
partido de França com 30,6 por cento, seguido por Os Republicanos
(27 por cento) e o PS (22,7 por cento).
Nalgumas regiões,
como no sudeste e no norte, a FN alcançará mais de 40 por cento dos
votos, segundo estimativas que apontam, ainda, para a FN ser o
partido mais votado em sete das 13 regiões francesas. A França está
em choque esta noite com estes resultados eleitorais.
"Todos contra
Marine le Pen" foi a palavra de ordem em França durante a
campanha eleitoral. Alguns dos mais significativos setores da
sociedade francesa, grande patronato, boa parte da imprensa,
artistas, e partidos de direita e de esquerda, fizeram coro para
tentar travar o partido (FN) da líder nacionalista francesa, que as
sondagens davam como vencedor este domingo, na primeira volta das
eleições regionais.
Este 6 de dezembro
de 2015 é um dia histórico para Marine le Pen. Esta noite, a
direita e a esquerda não sabem o que fazer para a travar e ainda não
decidiram se organizam desistências recíprocas ou se constituem
listas comuns para a impedir de chegar à presidência de algumas
regiões na segunda volta, cuja votação decorre dentro de uma
semana. O eventual desentendimento entre os socialistas e a direita
vai favorecer a FN, na segunda volta – esquerda e direita têm
apenas um par de dias para conseguirem chegar a um acordo.
Mas, mesmo com
acordo para a segunda volta entre a direita e a esquerda, o partido
de Marine le Pen tem sérias hipóteses de ganhar no próximo domingo
a presidência de pelo menos duas das 13 regiões francesas –
Norte-Pas-de-Calais-Picardia e Provença-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. O que
pode acontecer no próximo dia 13 nestas duas grandes regiões é
muito fácil de compreender: a FN pode vir a presidir ao destino de
11 milhões de franceses, ou seja mais do que toda a população
residente em Portugal continental.
REFUGIADOS E
ATENTADOS BENEFICIARAM MARINE LE PEN
Durante a
pré-campanha, Marine Le Pen beneficiou dos efeitos de dois
acontecimentos marcantes: a crise dos migrantes às portas da Europa
e os atentados terroristas de 13 de novembro. Estes dois assuntos
deram novo fôlego aos dois argumentos históricos da FN, partido que
sempre foi contra a imigração e a desenvolvimento do islamismo em
França.
Com os atentados
terroristas, apenas ela e o Presidente da República, François
Hollande, cresceram nas sondagens. Mas a subida de Hollande (20 por
cento de apoios a mais) é apenas um reflexo de defesa e de unidade
dos franceses na guerra contra o terrorismo e não beneficiou o seu
partido, o PS.
Os franceses estão
de acordo com a declaração de guerra de Hollande ao Daesh (Estado
Islâmico), com o estado de emergência no interior do país e com as
milhares de rusgas nos meios fundamentalistas islamitas franceses.
Mas não votaram pelo PS nas regionais.
O terrorismo e o
islamismo radical colocaram em segundo plano os temas tradicionais
das eleições regionais que eram antigamente sobretudo a
agricultura, os transportes, o turismo, o ensino ou a saúde.
No sudeste, a jovem
Marion Maréchal-le Pen, sobrinha de Marine e cabeça de lista
regional da FN, falou todos os dias, durante a campanha eleitoral,
nas raízes cristãs da França que “nunca foi muçulmana e nunca o
será”. A tia, e líder, Marine, candidata no norte, foi mais longe
sobre as questões migratórias, identitárias e de segurança e
pediu que “nem mais um migrante seja recebido em França porque
além do mais vêm terroristas com eles”.
Sem alianças
consistentes da parte direita e da esquerda, a neta de Jean-Marie le
Pen, fundador da FN, pode ganhar a presidência dessa zona com forte
poder económico e que inclui cidades como Marselha, Nice e Cannes,
tal como Marine tem fortes hipóteses de vencer no norte, cuja
capital é Lille.
PESADELO E COZINHA
ELEITORAL
Mas o cenário,
neste domingo de primeira volta, é ainda mais pesado para alguns
franceses. É um verdadeiro pesadelo para todos os que chamam
“fascistas” aos lepenistas porque a FN pode conquistar ainda mais
regiões devido ao facto de Os Republicanos (novo nome da UMP, do
ex-presidente, Nicolas Sarkozy) e a esquerda não se entenderem na
estratégia da chamada “Frente Republicana” (todos contra a FN,
através de desistências e fusões de listas) para a segunda volta,
no próximo domigo.
Com efeito, para a
segunda volta, na votação decisiva para definir quem vai dirigir as
regiões, no caso de se verificarem “triangulares” com listas
autónomas da FN, dos Republicanos e da Esquerda, os lepenistas
surgem em posição muito favorável em pelo menos mais quatro
regiões.
Nicolas Sarkozy,
chefe de Os Republicanos, radicalizou o discurso durante a campanha,
abraçou teses da FN, mas os seus candidatos Republicanos não
conseguiram fazer na primeira volta deste domingo a diferença.
O PS, através do
presidente Hollande e do primeiro-ministro, Manuel Valls, também
sublinharam as suas políticas marciais contra os radicais islâmicos:
intensificaram ataques na Síria e no Iraque, fecharam mesquitas,
prenderam centenas de pessoas depois dos atentados de novembro e
pretendem mesmo retirar a nacionalidade francesa aos jiadistas.
Marine le Pen já
vencera as últimas eleições europeias e apenas foi contida nas
eleições autárquicas e departamentais que se seguiram em França
pelo sistema eleitoral maioritário a duas voltas que penaliza os
partidos que não conseguem concretizar alianças entre a primeira e
a segunda voltas.
A partir desta
noite, o debate em França vai ser este: como impedir a FN de
conquistar a presidência de algumas das 13 regiões francesas?
Apenas será possível se a esquerda e a direita se entenderem para
constituírem a chamada “Frente Republicana contra a
extrema-direita”.
Mas, mesmo nessa
eventualidade, será preciso que os respetivos eleitores sigam à
letra as orientações dos estados-maiores partidários. Para travar
a FN, a tradicional cozinha eleitoral francesa, sempre original
devido à lei eleitoral, vai ter resultar numa estratégia clara que
evite a cacofonia nas diversas regiões.
Nestas eleições
regionais, apenas votaram metade dos eleitores franceses, apesar de
tudo mais quase cinco por cento do que nas anteriores eleições.
Foi um escrutínio
especial, porque decorreu sob o estado de emergência: devido aos
terríveis atentados de há três semanas, os eleitores votaram com
polícias e militares armados junto às assembleias de voto,
exatamente como acontece em alguns países envolvidos em guerras
civis.
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Big
gains for far-right in French election
Bad
night on the cards for Hollande’s Socialists in regional poll.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
12/6/15, 8:36 PM CET Updated 12/6/15, 9:38 PM CET
PARIS — Marine Le
Pen’s far-right National Front is on course to make major gains in
French regional elections Sunday, winning almost a third of the vote
and coming out on top in six out of 13 regions, according to exit
polls.
An exit poll by Ifop
put the National Front on 30.8 percent, ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy’s
center-right Les Républicains party (27.2 percent) and President
François Hollande’s ruling Socialist party (22.7 percent).
Le Pen and her
25-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, were both far ahead of
rivals in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Provence-Alpes-Cotes d’Azur
regions, with 41 percent and 40 percent of the vote, respectively.
The result, if
confirmed, would be the National Front’s best ever in a national
vote. It confirmed the rise of Le Pen’s party weeks after the
terrorist attacks in Paris, in a country beset by high unemployment
and gripped by fears about the ongoing European migration crisis.
While the
first-round of voting does not mean the Front will necessarily win
control of those six regions, it nonetheless delivers a powerful blow
to Hollande and shows that Le Pen’s anti-EU, anti-immigration
message is increasingly popular.
Hollande, France’s
least popular president since World War II, according to opinion
polls, has seen his approval rating jump by 20 percentage points
since the November 13 attacks. But the president’s increased
popularity did little to help Socialist candidates Sunday.
Le Pen, who will run
for president in 2017, welcomed the results with a defiant speech
calling on voters to turn their backs on the political class.
“This vote
confirms what previous polls had announced, but the official
observers did not want to admit: the National movement is henceforth
without any ambiguity the first party of France even though it is,
let us recall, barely represented in parliament,” she said.
Over the next week,
before the final round of voting on December 13, losing candidates
will wrangle over whether they stay in the race, or drop out and call
on their supporters to back a rival candidate. The latter strategy,
which has become known as forming a “Republican Front,” aims to
gather enough votes behind a combined Right-Left list to stop the
National Front candidate from winning.
For the party that
drops out, it means losing all influence at the regional level.
Minutes after the
preliminary count was announced, Pierre de Saintignon, the Socialist
candidate who placed third in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, hinted
in a speech to supporters that he could make such a move.
“Nobody can
pretend this evening that they can win alone,” he said, without
specifying whether he would remain in the race or drop out. “We
must find a solution to defend the values of the Republic.”
Former president
Sarkozy took the opposite tack, striking a conciliatory tone in a
speech that addressed National Front voters directly.
“I want to say to
all those who made this choice that we hear their worries but that
they will find no solution with a party whose policies would
dramatically weaken France’s position,” he said.
However, Sarkozy
added that he had no intention of calling on candidates from his
party to step aside.
Authors:
Nicholas Vinocur
5
takeaways on France’s regional elections
The
National Front continues to rise, the establishment is in big
trouble.
By PIERRE BRIANÇON
12/7/15, 12:18 AM CET Updated 12/7/15, 7:39 AM CET
The far-right
National Front’s victory in the first round of French regional
elections on Sunday will have an impact far beyond the composition of
local governments and the shock it will have sent through the French
political establishment.
In every single
European capital, politicians will ponder the results and wonder how
an anti-immigration, anti-European movement could become France’s
first political party. They will also worry about what it means for
Europe in a time of crisis — economic and existential.
The National Front
may take over two, three or even more French regions after a second
round of voting on December 13, but for many, the damage has been
done.
1. Le Pen’s
mainstream push pays off
Marine Le Pen, the
National Front’s current leader and daughter of the party’s
founder Jean-Marie, is reaping the rewards for her strategy of
pulling the party away from the far-right fringes, ridding it of its
extremist stigma, and courting the disenfranchised working class she
says is being abandoned by the mainstream political parties of both
right and left.
She stands a good
chance of winning and then running the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, an
area more populous than 12 EU countries. Her personal victory,
winning more than 40 percent of the popular vote in an industrial
area that was historically a stronghold of the Communist and
Socialist parties, shows how many voters have drifted away from the
ruling left, after seven years of economic crisis.
Le Pen’s niece,
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, who is seen as more conservative than her
aunt, notably on social issues, did even better in the Provence
region. Other leading candidates also did better than expected,
showing that the party has developed a grassroots following far
beyond mere adhesion to Marine Le Pen herself.
2. Left-right may
have to join forces to stop Le Pen
The Socialist party
decided late Sunday to withdraw its candidates from the second round
of voting in regions where they had finished third in the first
round. It also called on voters to back conservative candidates in a
week’s time in order to prevent the National Front from winning.
That is particularly
the case in the North, in Provence and in Alsace, where Le Pen’s
close aide and a party vice president, Florian Philippot, came in
first with 35 percent of the vote.
The National Front
could still be defeated in the second round if all or most Socialist
voters decide to back the center-right. It would, however, allow Le
Pen to denounce, as she has long been doing, the mainstream parties
for colluding to keep her out of power.
By pulling its
candidates in the name of what has been dubbed a “Republican Front”
against Le Pen, the Socialists stand in stark contrast to Nicolas
Sarkozy, the conservative opposition leader. Earlier Sunday, Sarkozy
rejected such tactics and said he didn’t want his Les Républicain
party’s candidates to withdraw, or join forces with their Socialist
rivals.
As soon as the
second round is over on December 13, expect the blame game to begin
on who is responsible for handing over regions to the Le Pens.
3. Hollande and
Sarkozy are both losers
President François
Hollande enjoyed a boost in popularity in the wake of the November 13
Paris attacks. But it mattered little on Sunday.
The new emphasis on
security questions, with calls for a tougher stand on migrants and
refugees, leaves Hollande exactly where he was before: an unpopular
president who seems unable to find ways to address high unemployment
— which is now, for the first time, above the eurozone average.
The defeat is also a
personal one for Hollande, who when in opposition five years ago led
the Socialist party to a resounding victory in local elections, with
his party taking over all but one of the country’s then 21 regions.
The French leader
had remained uncharacteristically silent in recent weeks and hadn’t
campaigned at all, preferring to stick to the “presidential”
posture and tend to France’s international problems — especially
the fight against ISIL. It had little effect.
However, the strong
showing of his popular Defense Minister Jean Yves le Drian in the
Brittany region shows that members of the government seen as good at
their job can still attract voters.
But Hollande’s
loss is not a win for his long-time rival Sarkozy. The former
president was also one of the day’s losers.
In many regions,
long-time mainstream conservative voters deserted to Le Pen. That was
the case in Provence, where Sarkozy ally Christian Estrosi pulled
less than 25 percent of the vote against Maréchal-Le Pen’s 42
percent.
Sarkozy’s strategy
of tough talking in a bid to compete with the National Front’s
rhetoric didn’t convince many voters.
4. Eyes on the 2017
prize
With 18 months to go
before presidential elections, the result of Sunday’s vote will be
scrutinized to assess the chances of potential candidates. But even
if France has become a three-party country, it’s clear that a lot
could happen before May 2017.
The preliminary
results on Sunday night showed that parties from the left, including
the Socialists and their fractious allies such as the Greens,
received around 35 percent of the vote. The mainstream conservatives
— Les Républicains and others — won between 30 and 32 percent,
and the Front National won between 29 and 31 percent.
Socialist leaders
began to spin that the left is still France’s main political
movement. That may show they were right to push for joint candidates
in the regional elections — but illustrates their failure in
convincing other parties to join them.
The secret hope of
both Socialists and conservatives is that the National Front fails at
what it has never done before: wield executive power in a large
region.
The party has no
experience of management, and voters will get a chance to see them
raise taxes, manage budgets, sit on school boards and interact with
other local and regional governments.
Seeing the National
Front at work, the other parties hope, will open the eyes of voters.
5. What happens in
France doesn’t stay in France
Marine Le Pen
refrained from any mention of Europe or the ills she believes it
brings on France in her victory speech on Sunday night. That may be
the surest sign yet that she has already started her presidential
campaign. But her underlings didn’t show the same restraint, and
denounced Europe, the market economy and a “U.S. influenced foreign
policy” as soon as the results were in.
It’s easy to see
how the National Front’s self-proclaimed status as the country’s
main party will have an impact on the general debate about Europe —
on topics such as the refugee crisis, the country’s economic
problems or the role of Germany in the EU, to name but a few.
Sarkozy’s speeches
already show the influence of the National Front. He has been picking
up ideas straight from his far-right competitor: a tough on crime,
tough on immigration line, complete with the end of Schengen and the
emphasis on national powers as opposed to pan-EU ones.
Whether it
influences Hollande’s rhetoric and policies remains to be seen. The
most likely scenario is that any reform agenda will be put on ice to
avoid controversy. Hollande will then have to rely on foreign policy,
where there are few votes to be gained, and hope that an economic
recovery might curb unemployment before the presidential campaign
starts in earnest.
Meanwhile, France’s
European partners would be forgiven for thinking that 18 months is a
short time to turn around such a situation.
Authors:
Pierre Briançon
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