Voting was more brisk than expected on Sunday in the first round of French local elections, in which the anti-immigration National Front (FN) hopes to top the poll and consolidate leader Marine Le Pen's bid for the presidency in 2017. Opinion polls have suggested voters are unexcited about the election for councillors with limited powers in the "departments", one stratum of France's complex local administration, which President Francois Hollande has promised to overhaul. But by 5:00 pm local time (1600 GMT), three hours before the polling stations closed, official figures showed participation had reached about 43 percent, more than 6 percentage points higher than at the same stage on the equivalent polling day four years ago and indicating a higher final voting rate than had been expected. Three exit polls put the final participation rate at between 50.5 and 51.5 percent against a pre-election poll of 47 percent on Friday and compared with 44.3 percent participation in 2011. Voting rates aside, it was a measure of the fear Le Pen's far-right party has struck among France's political elite that Hollande, his ministers and their mainstream conservative rivals have all been touring the country with last-minute appeals to voters. The FN, which wants a return to the French franc and a referendum on capital punishment, surfed a wave of disenchantment with established politicians to emerge top in last year's European Parliament elections and won control of a dozen city halls in a separate ballot. Surveys have put it and the opposition UMP neck-and-neck to win close to a third each of Sunday's vote, with Hollande's Socialists trailing. A Harris Interactive opinion poll for France's parliamentary TV channel released on Friday put the FN on 29 percent, the UMP on 28, and the Socialists on 19. The two-round nature of the ballot means the FN will win control in only a handful of departments in second-round run-offs due on March 29. Many UMP and Socialist voters are expected to switch allegiance to whatever party can keep the FN out of power. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/125848.aspx
