article_snippet: National Front leader Marine Le Pen hopes of becoming President of France suffered a huge blow tonight as National Front leader Marine Le Pen National Front was beaten into joint second place in regional elections.
article_snippet: National Front leader Marine Le Pen gives a press conference after National Front leader Marine Le Pen hopes of becoming
article_snippet: The figures made a mockery of Ms Le Pen's claims that Ms Le Pen's fiercely anti-immigration and anti-Europe party could mount a serious challenge for power. '
article_snippet: Ms Le Pen was certain that Ms Le Pen could do better than the opposition conservatives and the ruling Socialists, who are performing appallingly because of the hapless government of President Francois Hollande.
article_snippet: Ms Le Pen had positioned the National Front (FN) away from the National Front (FN overtly racist and anti-Semitic roots, and won 25 per cent of the vote at local and European elections last year.
article_snippet: Do you think a the National Front scoring twenty five per cent in European elections, perhaps thirty per cent in local elections, and so on, cannot win the presidential election?'
article_snippet: France's most popular party, Le Pen said the result was still a gain for a party almost totally absent from the departements at present, and a slap for Hollande's Prime Minister Manuel Valls. '
article_snippet: Although Ms Le Pen was always unlikely to become president in 2017, it was thought she could come runner up, as she father
article_snippet: Jean Marie Le Pen did in 2002.
article_snippet: Le Pen senior's limited victory sent shockwaves round the world, even though Le Pen eventually lost to Jacques Chirac.