France's moderate right-wing opposition, already in the throes of its worst crisis in decades, suffered a new setback at the hands of the National Front (NF) in a weekend by-election.
The far-right NF candidate, Ms Cendrine Le Chevallier, led the field in the southern port city of Toulon with 39.55 per cent of the vote.
The Toulon parliamentary by-election was seen as a litmus test for the extremists as well as for the sorely-divided mainstream right, which has been eliminated from next Sunday's run-off. That will be contested between Ms Le Chevallier and her Socialist Party rival, Ms Odette Casanova, who won 31.69 per cent.
A victory by Ms Le Chevallier (44) would allow the far-right to make a comeback to the National Assembly. Despite its 14.94 per cent score in general elections last May, the NF won only a single seat in the 577-member house. That was won by Cendrine's husband, Mr Jean-Marie Le Chevallier, who was later ousted for infringing rules on party campaign spending, and this led to the new poll.
With the turn-out at only 44.8 per cent in the first round of the vote the race remains wide open, analysts said yesterday, despite the family's grip on the city where Ms Le Chevallier's husband has been mayor for the last three years.
The real losers are France's already fragile mainstream right, the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) and its junior partner, the centre-right Union for French Democracy (UDF). In 1997, the outgoing UDF deputy, Mr Daniel Colin, and an RPR rival scored a combined 32.5 per cent of the vote in Toulon. This time Ms Colin, running on a joint ticket, garnered a mere 22.3 per cent.
"The right has been bled white in Toulon as it has been in the whole Var region," said Le Figaro. "The parliamentary opposition is crumbling."
Ms Le Chevallier, who has been a NF activist for 20 years, described herself after her first-round victory as the new "representative of the plural right" and called on mainstream voters to rally to her next Sunday "to block the Socialo-Communist candidate".
Two airlines operating flights to Africa, including the French national carrier, have said they will no longer fly people expelled from France to Mali, Le Figaro reported yesterday.
Air France and the pan-African carrier, Air Afrique, told officials in Paris last week that in future they would refuse to carry to Mali people expelled either as illegal immigrants or for other reasons.
According to French officials, the Belgian air carrier, Sabena, has agreed to step into the shoes of Air Afrique and Air France, and fly the deportees to Mali.