Set-back for NF as Le Pen fails to win regional post

THE LEADER of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, yesterday failed in his attempt to scramble over the rubble of the French centre-right into the presidency of the third most populous region in France.

His defeat, which allowed a Socialist to take over the government of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region, was the first set-back for the Front after eight days of victories which have left France's "traditional" right in ruins. How serious a defeat it was is unclear. It may be that the NF never really expected Mr Le Pen to be regional president. The xenophobic and ultra-nationalist party made the demand, partly to satisfy its own supporters, and partly to show who would be the real boss in a possible new alliance of the far right.

However, the momentum of the National Front was certainly checked. The NF leader had asked rebellious members of the centre-right parties to vote for him when the regional assembly for greater Provence met in Marseilles yesterday. He pointed out that in five other regions last Friday NF councillors had elected five centre-right presidents (against the orders of the leaders of their own parties). The political bill for that support was due, he said.

The Provencal rebels from the Gaullist RPR and liberal UDF alliance had expected one of their own to benefit from ultra-right support, like in the other regions. They refused to commit such a high-profile act of apostasy as voting for Mr Le Pen. The upshot was to make all the centre-right rebels look not just unscrupulous and dishonest but stupid: hardly the basis for a functioning alliance with the NF in any region.

To muddle the situation even more, Mr Le Pen took his revenge by calling for the resignation of the former defence minister, Charles Millon, one of the centre-right rebels elected with NF support in the Rhones-Alpes region last week. All in all, the day's events had the hall-mark of a clumsy return to the petulant wrecking strategies associated with Mr Le Pen; the gains of recent days were based on the more softly-softly approach long advocated by his number two, Bruno Megret.

A sixth region, Upper Normandy, fell to a rebel centre-right politician with NF support yesterday. There were set-backs for the NF in two other areas however.

In the greater Paris region, the Ile-de-France, a Socialist president seemed likely to be elected after centre-right councillors refused to accept NF support. In Midi-Pyrenees, a centre-right president was elected with NF votes but immediately resigned on principle.

There was no disguising, none the less, the disarray of the traditional right, split between a faction willing to deal with the NF and a faction refusing deals. President Jacques Chirac, still the titular leader of the centre-right, was to make a televised appeal last night to his supporters, and to France, to refuse all appeasement of ultra-nationalism and racism.