Front National to take 7 Seats?

The Galliawatch blog reports that the Front National could stand a chance of taking seven seats in the National Assembly in the second round of elections in France today. Below are the seven seats in question, together with the names of the FN candidates and their shares of the vote garnered in round one of the elections last Sunday:

• 11^th district of Pas-de-Calais - Marine Le Pen , 42.36%
• 3^rd district of le Vauclause - Marion Maréchal Le Pen, 34.6%
• 2^nd district of le Gard - Gilbert Collard, 34.57%
• 3^rd district of Bouches-du-Rhône - Stéphane Ravier, 29.87%
• 16^th district of les Bouches-du-Rhône - Valérie Laupies, 28.98%
• 6^th district of Moselle - Florian Philippot, 26.34%
• 4^th district of le Vauclause - Jacques Bompard, 23.51%

This list, originally compiled by Le Figaro, indicates those seats where the FN could have a chance of winning, rather than those in which it is thought that they will win. Of these, the one contested by Marion Maréchal Le Pen looks set to provide the party with its best prospect, simply because unlike in Marine Le Pen’s constituency, her opponents have not decided to field a single candidate in opposition to her candidature. It thus seems most likely that the FN could take one seat today, but it would be no surprise if it were to take none at all. It has a tough fight on its hands, but the modernisation of the party carried out by Marine Le Pen appears to have paid dividends in giving it the semblance of a chance of winning under the first-past-the-post system. However, given that the UMP has toughened up its rhetoric (although not its policy) on immigration in response to the rise in the popularity of the FN, it is an unfortunate likelihood that this will have served to stymie the prospects of the FN in this election.