France's Le Pen Accuses Rivals of 'Intellectual Terrorism'

In the run-up to the second round of voting in the French regional elections, right-wing Front National Party leader Marine Le Pen has accused her rivals of being a "lazy, treacherous mafia, an oligarchy" pursuing "intellectual terrorism" in the campaign.

Her caustic remarks to supporters came as Le Pen's Front National Party looked set to win at least one region, following the first round of voting on December 6, giving her party its first ever regional seat in its history.

French far right wins record votes in first poll since attacks #franceelections https://t.co/88z4MAZZKL pic.twitter.com/6g7ZbYkVyI

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) December 7, 2015​

Marine Le Pen topped the first round poll in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, with 40 percent, while her niece Marechal-Le Pen won the first round in the south east. However, in an effort to encourage tactical voting, Francois Hollande's Socialist party began withdrawing candidates from seats it looked unlikely to win, giving Nicholas Sarkozy's Republicans a clear run against the Front National, making it unlikely that Le Pen's party would gain the region.

#NationalFront success in #FranceElections shows citizens are 'fed up' https://t.co/Xm0MFYmhHa pic.twitter.com/mSlG3ErvwJ

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) December 7, 2015​

Meanwhile, Sarkozy moved to win over some of Le Pen's supporters by saying that he sympathized with the popular embitterment over the refugee crisis and that there was nothing immoral about voting for the Front National. "As if there were good French voters and bad French voters.

If you say to people who are suffering that they are stupid and immoral, you are not distinguishing between the National Front leaders and their voters." His intention was to put himself onside with some of Le Pen's supporters to swing the vote his way.

Le Pen told a rally of her supporters:

"Don't be afraid of these totalitarians. Don't let yourselves be intimidated. Don't give into this intellectual terrorism."

She described Hollande and Sarkozy's parties as a "lazy, treacherous mafia, an oligarchy" that had worked together for decades to keep smaller parties out of power.

Losing Grip

Meanwhile, in a sign that the tactics of Hollande and Sarkozy might be working, opinion polls on Wednesday and Thursday in three of regions targeted by the Front National showed voters heeding the Socialist call to vote for the conservatives, although in two regions the outcome was within the margin of error, according to Reuters.

#France far-right election poster says "choose your suburb": with veiled woman or not. #ParisAttacks tensions pic.twitter.com/KdipRgcCBW

— Vivienne Walt (@vivwalt) December 3, 2015​

In the north, Le Pen would win 47 percent of the vote while Xavier Bertrand, a former minister with the conservative Republicans, would get 53 percent, the TNS Sofres-OnePoint poll showed. 

In the southeast, Marechal-Le Pen would get 46 percent against 54 percent for Christian Estrosi, the conservative mayor of the Riviera city of Nice.

But on Thursday another poll in the southeast, this one by Harris Interactive, showed a much smaller lead for Estrosi, with 51 percent of the votes against 49 percent for Marechal-Le Pen. Another of the six regions where the FN led in the first round was Alsace-Champagne-Ardenne-Lorraine in the east, where it won 36 percent of the vote.

There, the Socialist lead candidate Jean-Pierre Masseret resisted his party's call to step down, making the outcome of the three-way vote uncertain.