The first round of the French regional elections: the far right turn

France held the first round of voting in regional elections on 6 December, with the Front National emerging as the party with the largest vote share. Marta Lorimer writes that the elections were a blow for both François Hollande’s Socialist Party and the Republicans, led by Nicolas Sarkozy. She notes that with doubts being raised over whether the left and right will cooperate in the second round to keep the Front National out of power, the party looks set to win an unprecedented degree of control over sizeable regional budgets and secure a strong basis to operate from for the 2017 presidential elections.