France’s Front National (FN) is on course to triumph in the country’s local elections this Sunday, in a vote that will be a key test for the country’s struggling left-wing government and its economic record.
“The FN could win a number of departments (council seats),” Antonio Barroso, a senior analyst at Teneo Holdings, told CNBC on Wednesday.
“This doesn’t change a lot, but it does mean that the FN is slowly but steadily managing to get more power and resources, which is important for consolidating its place in the eyes of the electorate.”
The two-round structure of this weekend’s vote means that while the FN, which has campaigned on a hard anti-immigration and –European Union ticket, will win a large share of the vote in the first round, many voters will switch allegiance in the second round to whichever party can keep it out of power Nonetheless, opinion polls predict the far-right party it will beat the ruling Socialist party and its center-right rivals in the first round of voting this weekend.
