Le Pen's daughter in National Front victory

The French political establishment scrambled yesterday to try to block a significant electoral breakthrough by the daughter of the veteran far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Marine Le Pen, 40, and her running-mate topped the poll on Sunday night's municipal by-election in Hénin-Beaumont, an impoverished former coal mining town near Lens in the Pas de Calais. Having won nearly 40 per cent of the votes cast in the first round, the Le Pens' National Front party is in a strong position to capture its first town hall for seven years in the run-off ballot this Sunday. It would be the first time that the ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-European party has taken control of a town council in the depressed industrial areas of northern France. Victory would also strengthen Mme Le Pen's chances of inheriting, and attempting to modernise the NF, when her 81-year-old father retires in the next two to three years.

All other French parties, from the far left to President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre right, appealed yesterday for the creation of a "republican front" to block Mme Le Pen this weekend. They appealed to all voters to support the independent, left-wing candidate, Daniel Duquenne, who came second in the first round with just over 20 per cent of the votes. More