Europe Opts for Old Faces as Populist Advance Is Checked
This article is for subscribers only.
European voters checked the progress of insurgent parties in their quest to overturn the established political order, delivering better-than-forecast results for mainstream candidates in regional elections in France and Spain.
In the first major test of protest parties’ popularity since January’s election of Syriza in Greece, a high turnout in France denied Marine Le Pen’s National Front the first place some polls had suggested in nationwide local elections, while Syriza ally Podemos’s advance was contained in the Spanish region of Andalusia, which has higher unemployment than Greece.