PARIS: France’s conservatives trounced the far right and humiliated President Emmanuel Macron’s party in Sunday’s regional votes, shaking up the political landscape and crowing that the 2022 presidential election is now a three-way contest.
Xavier Bertrand, a one-time insurance salesman and now presidential hopeful, said the resurgence of the centre right in the regional races left it strongest to challenge the Macron-Le Pen duo that has dominated French politics since 2017.
The centre right’s come-back reflects the fading of voter distaste at the last conservative administration of Nicolas Sarkozy, Macron’s difficulties rejuvenating French politics, and the far right’s failure to broaden its appeal after tacking from the fringes towards the mainstream.
“Now the presidential contest is a three-horse race,” Bertrand told the business daily Les Echos as he doubled down on his pitch to lead the conservative’s challenge next year.
Bertrand, who is derided by some foes as an overweight provincial politician, on Sunday handsomely defeated the far right in the north, a Le Pen stronghold where crime and the decline of local industry top voter concerns, to be re-elected leader of the region.
He said his party provided the strongest bulwark against the far right, earlier proclaiming to have “smashed the jaws of the Front National”, referring to the old name of Le Pen’s party often associated with its anti-Semitic, xenophobic past. — Reuters
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