Le Pen, Royal vote in French elections

2012-06-17 14

(ROUGH CUT -- NO REPORTER NARRATION)

France's far right leader Marine Le Pen votes in a parliamentary run-off in which her party, the National Front, is looking to enter parliament for the first time since 1986.

Socialist politician Segolene Royal, President Francois Hollande's former partner and mother of his four children, also voted as she battles for a parliament seat against rival left-winger Olivier Falorni in the seaside town of La Rochelle.

Royal could lose out badly to Falorni, a dissident left-winger expelled from the Socialist Party earlier this year for refusing to step aside for Royal as the left's candidate in La Rochelle, according to a recent Ifop opinion poll.