The result is a disappointment for Le Pen Le Pen fails to win any regions in French vote Sarkozy’s Les Républicains make the biggest gains while Le Pen disappoints.

PARIS — France’s National Front failed to win a single region in local elections Sunday, after mainstream parties managed to block its candidates — including the far-right party’s chief, Marine Le Pen — from taking advantage of leads in several regions.

While President François Hollande's Socialists avoided disaster by taking five of France's 13 metropolitan regions, Nicolas Sarkozy's Les Républicains party came out on top with at least seven regions including Île-de-France, the populous area that includes Paris.

The result was a major letdown for Le Pen's National Front, which failed to build on its lead position in six regions after the election’s first round, and fell short in the second round after rivals rallied to ensure that the party would not win any regional presidency.

Marine Le Pen and her 26-year-old niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, had both led the field in their respective regions in the first round. But Hollande responded by calling on voters to back rivals in order to block the National Front from winning any regional presidencies, depriving them of local power bases and a springboard for the 2017 presidential election.

While the result appeared to vindicate the government's strategy against Le Pen and was above expectations for Hollande's Socialists, Prime Minister Manuel Valls struck a cautious note in remarks after the initial poll results were reported.

“I am thankful for the voters who answered the very clear call from the left to form a blocade against the extreme right which tonight has won no regions,” Valls said. “But tonight there is no relief, no triumphalism, no message of victory. The danger of the extreme right is not averted. I do not forget the results of the first round and of past elections”

However, Le Pen’s party managed to increase its representation in regional councils and will still be able to claim, on the basis of the first-round vote, that it is France’s “number one” party in terms of popular support.

In the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, Marine Le Pen lost against her center-right rival, Xavier Bertrand, by 58.1 percent versus 41.9 percent, according to an exit poll by OpinionWay.

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen lost by a slightly smaller margin in the southern Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, with 44.2 percent of the vote versus 55.8 for Christian Estrosi, the center-right mayor of Nice.

National Front vice president Florian Philippot upset forecasts to lose by a wide margin in his region in eastern France, with 36.6 percent versus 47.6 for Philippe Richert of the center-right Les Républicains and 15.8 percent for Socialist Jean-Pierre Masseret, who defied calls from Valls to withdraw after the first round.

“The French have given a lesson of unity, of courage and honor to political leaders,” said Xavier Bertrand, a former labor minister under Sarkozy. “History will remember that this is where we stopped the advance of the National Front, but tonight’s result forces us to remain humble.”

'Nobody won'

Despite her poor showing, Marine Le Pen drew satisfaction from having pushed Socialists out of their regional council seats in the north and south, and vowed to push ahead to the 2017 presidental election.

"Nothing can stop us," she said. "Thank you (voters) for having defied the orders issued from the palaces of the Republic."

For Hollande, the local election results are encouraging because they spared his party a much-feared wipeout at the regional level and brought evidence that other left-wing parties would still back the government against the FN, despite disagreements.

But as the final votes were counted, political heavyweights in both mainstream parties started to draw lessons from a high-risk election that failed to dissipate the threat from the far-right.

Le Pen's anti-EU, anti-immigration party won more popular votes in the first round than ever before, strong gains that could carry over to the 2017 presidential election. If Le Pen maintains her current level of support, she could place first in round one of that vote against an unpopular Hollande, although if Sunday's results are any guide, she would still lose in a runoff.

Socialist mayor of Lille Martine Aubry, who had declined her party's invitation to run against Le Pen in her region, said that "nobody" had won and called on her party to start soul-searching.

"We cannot come out of these elections without asking ourselves real questions," she said. "We need to restore confidence in politics."

Sarkozy, who had refused called on supporters to back the left against the National Front, led his Républicains to a disappointing showing in the first round but performed relatively well in the second. Sources inside Sarkozy's camp told French media that officials had interpreted the result as confirming his policy of tacking firmly to the right, refusing any alliances with Le Pen's party and attacking the government.

However, the center-right group may shake up its senior steering committee in coming days following disagreements over Sarkozy's unbending strategy, with Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet reported to be on her way out.

"We can't go from one election to another as if the French had told us nothing," Sarkozy said, adding that voters wanted "strong answers" on issues ranging from unemployment to security or French identity.