PARIS — France's options are no longer as simple as left and right. The far-right, antiestablishment National Front has ridden a wave of anger over migration and extremist attacks straight into the political mainstream — where experts predict it will stay.
The party's historic results in Sunday's first round of regional elections were the latest in a series of electoral inroads, with scores that shamed and destabilized traditional parties.
The conservative party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy and President Francois Hollande's Socialists — the longstanding anchors of French political life — are scrambling to find ways to block the ascent of the far right before the Dec. 13 final round.
The showing of the National Front, which won six of 13 regions, will dynamize leader Marine Le Pen's planned bid for the presidency in 2017. In the traditionally Socialist northeastern region where she was running, the party won more than 40 percent of the vote. Her niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, had a similar showing in the southeastern Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, a stronghold of the traditional right.
In a bid to stop a second-round National Front victory, the Socialist Party ordered its candidates to withdraw from those two regions so their supporters could give their votes to conservative candidates, a bitter exercise that Prime Minister Manuel Valls said was necessary.
''There is a choice between two visions of France,'' Valls said Monday night — that of traditional parties and that of the extreme right, ''which divides the French, tries to pit one against the other.''
Opponents say the National Front criticizes without offering solutions. The party, with four lawmakers in Parliament, opposes the European Union and the euro currency and fears Muslim immigrants will supplant French civilization.
But Le Pen says hers is the party of patriots — a message with resonance since the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130. ''I believe that the National Front's incredible results are the revolt of the people against the elite,'' she said Monday.
''The National Front is an excellent first-round party,'' said far-right expert Jean-Yves Camus. More difficult is ''transforming itself into pole position in round two.''