The rise of far-right parties in Europe

Many in France breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as the results of the second round of voting in France's regional elections were announced. The French National Front, led by Marine le Pen, had led in 6 of the 13 regions in the first round of voting last week, but her party was eventually beaten into third place as the mainstream parties (Republicans and Socialists) had effectively colluded and withdrawn their weakest candidate in some regions, causing voters who would have voted for that candidate to switch their vote to the other mainstream party rather than vote for the National Front candidates. The fact that Ms le Pen's party did so well in the first round, however, paints a similar picture to that around Europe. The graphic below from this week's Economist shows the increasing popularity of far-right parties around Europe: