Originally Posted by
LordKenwyne
When a Le Pen — or his or her party — makes it to a second round of elections, French conservatives and leftists have historically come together in a front républicain to block the National Front. This happened in 2002, when conservative Jacques Chirac squared off against Jean-Marie Le Pen following Socialist Lionel Jospin’s shocking defeat in the first round. Chirac swept the second round with a whopping 82 percent of the vote; such was the scale of revulsion at the prospect of a racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic bigot in the Élysée palace.
Last year — barely a month after the deadly Paris attacks — French voters did it again in the December regional elections, when conservatives and the left banded together to block a National Front sweep.