BREAKING NEWS

France's far-right fails to win its 3 target regions

PARIS - Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front lost election run-offs on Sunday in three key target regions despite topping last week's first round, exit polls showed, making Nicolas Sarkozy's conservatives and their allies the clear winner in all three.
The result followed the withdrawal of President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party in two of the regions for the decisive run-off round, and its call on supporters to vote tactically to keep the FN out of power.
Sarkozy's The Republicans and center-right allies took 57.5 percent of the vote in the northern region, where FN leader Marine Le Pen was standing against her 42.5 percent, the Ifop Fiducial poll for iTELE, Paris Match and Sud Radio showed.
In the south-east, where Le Pen's niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen was the FN's lead candidate, the conservatives scored 54.5 percent and the FN 45.5, the poll said.