French far right defeated in key vote

France`s far-right National Front (FN) has failed to win a single region in the second round of municipal polls.

The party was beaten into third place, despite leading in six of 13 regions in the first round of voting a week ago.

The centre-right Republicans finished ahead of President Francois Hollande`s governing Socialist Party.

FN leader Marine Le Pen said that mainstream parties had colluded to keep it from power and vowed to keep on fighting.

"Nothing can stop us now," she told supporters. "By tripling our number of councillors, we will be the main opposition force in most of the regions of France."

Ms Le Pen said the party had been "disenfranchised in the most indecent of ways by a campaign of lies and disinformation".

She had stood as a regional presidential candidate in the northern region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, while her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen was the FN`s candidate in the race in Provence-Alpes-Cote d`Azur, in the south.

After both led with more than 40% of the vote in the first round on 6 December, the Socialist candidates in those regions pulled out so their voters could support Republican candidates in the second round.

The FN actually increased its votes in the second round to more than 6.8 million, from 6.02 million on 6 December as more people voted, according to the ministry of the interior (In French). But the FN share of the vote went down slightly from 27.73% to 27.36%.

The Republicans increased their share from 26.65% to 40.63% and the Socialists from 23.12% to 29.14%.

The overall turnout increased from 22.6 million on 6 December to 26.2 million on Sunday. Sunday`s figures are based on a count of 98% of votes so far.