France goes to the polls in regional elections on Sunday,

France goes to the polls in regional elections on Sunday, three weeks after deadly Islamic State militant attacks in Paris that could bring strong gains for the far-right Front National.
Security will be beefed up at polling stations in the capital, where militants killed 130 people on 13 November.
The Front National (FN) may lead in as many as six out of 13 regions after the first round on Sunday.
Like other anti-immigration, anti-Europe parties across Europe, the FN is also likely to benefit from worries over the refugee crisis to win at least one region, and possibly more, in a conclusive runoff on 13 December, opinion polls show.


Even winning one regional council would be a major victory for the FN which has never had control of such constituencies.
“After the November 13 attacks we saw a clear increase in support for the National Front,” Ifop pollster analyst Jerome Fourquet said. “Everything is adding up for [it] to make an unprecedented score.“
The vote may redraw the political landscape, making French politics a three-way race in the 2017 presidential elections after decades of domination by the Socialists and conservatives.
The Socialists, who now rule France and control most regions, are set to lose most councils to either ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives or the FN, despite a boost in Francois Hollande’s popularity ratings from his handling of the attacks.

Sarkozy, who just a few weeks ago was hoping for a landslide victory that would boost his chances for 2017, faces the prospect a smaller victory than previously expected for his Republicans party because of the FN’s growing popularity, opinion polls show.
The key question as soon as polling stations close at 8pm and results start trickling in is whether the Socialists, seen coming third behind the FN and the Republicans in regions that the far-right could win on 13 December, will pull out of the race to try to keep the FN out of power.
The two regions where the FN is most likely to win are the north, where the party’s leader, Marine Le Pen, is a candidate and the south-east, where her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen is a leading contender.

Long content with attracting protest votes, the FN has changed strategy since Marine Le Pen took over from her father Jean-Marie in 2011, seeking to build a base of locally elected officials to target the top levels of power.