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The French government will not resign and will press on with tax cuts and other reforms despite a record victory for the far-right National Front in European Parliament elections, Prime Minister Manuel Valls insisted yesterday.
“Our country has for a long time been in an identity crisis, a crisis about France’s place in Europe, Europe’s place in our country,” said Mr Valls.
“We need another orientation for Europe” to combat the rise of populism, he added.
“Until unemployment falls, until purchasing power rises, until taxes fall, the French won’t believe us,” added Mr Valls, who was promoted to prime minister by President Francois Hollande after his
Socialist Party was routed in March municipal elections.
The Socialists harvested their lowest score ever in a European Parliament election.
The prime minister brushed off questions about whether to dissolve parliament, saying that the Socialist government’s five-year term, which began in 2012, “must go to the end.”
The fallout could be uncomfortable for a country that has been a pillar of the European Union and prides itself as a beacon of human rights.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the National Front success “a bad signal.”
The European Parliament’s website said yesterday that the Front National had captured 25.4 per cent of the vote, giving it 22 of France’s 74 allotted seats in the body. The conservative party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy won 21 per cent and the Socialists trailed at 14.5 per cent.