French far right wins record votes in first poll since attacks

France's far-right National Front (FN) saw record gains in the first round of regional polls Sunday, held under a state of emergency just three weeks after Islamic extremists killed 130 people in Paris.
 
Despite the strong result, it faces an uphill battle to clinch a run-off vote next week after Socialists withdrew candidates in an attempt to block it from power.
 
The FN came first with around 28 percent of the vote nationwide and topped the list in at least six of 13 regions, according to final estimates from the interior ministry.    

FN leader Marine Le Pen and her 25-year-old niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen broke the symbolic 40 percent mark in their respective regions, shattering previous records for the party as they tapped into voter anger over a stagnant economy and security fears linked to Europe's refugee crisis.
 
Marine Le Pen, a lawyer by training, welcomed the "magnificent result", saying it proved the FN was "without contest the first party of France".
 
A grouping of right-wing parties took 27 percent, the official estimates showed, while the ruling Socialist Party and its allies took 23.5 percent.
 
The polls were held under tight security following France's worst-ever terror attacks, which have thrust the FN's anti-immigration and often Islamophobic message to the fore.
 
Around half the 45 million registered voters took part in the polls.
         
Any party which secures 10 percent backing in the first round has the right to present candidates in the second round, due next Sunday.    

Final estimates showed 47-year-old Le Pen taking a whopping 40.5 percent of the vote in the economically depressed northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, once a bastion...