Waving French flags and cheering, hundreds of jubilant National Rally activists welcomed the first results at Marine Le Pen’s northern constituency headquarters as a decisive turning point on the party’s path to power.
Defending her seat in Hénin-Beaumont, a former mining town in the Pas de Calais, Le Pen achieved an outright victory with more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round. Because of this, she will be one of the few candidates who will not have to contest a run-off next Sunday.
Le Pen proclaimed the high turnout as making the result more conclusive, claiming the vote had “practically wiped out” the centrist Ensemble alliance of President Macron.
Despite the celebrations in Hénin-Beaumont, party activists had hoped for an even
