PARIS : South Turns Right?

All eyes will be on the right when French voters go to the polls across the country Sunday in the second and final round of voting to choose mayors and council members.

In the initial round, last Sunday , the anti-immigrant extreme right, whose national leader is Jean-Marie Le Pen, managed just about 6% of the vote nationwide. (The ruling conservative coalition of French President Jacques Chirac won 49%, better than in the last election but not as well as conservatives had hoped.)

But the right’s candidates did well enough to be considered favorites in southern France to become mayors of Nice and Vitrolles, an industrial town north of Marseilles, and to win control of several other cities. That trend, following Le Pen’s 15% of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in April, has alarmed many mainstream politicians.