Greens Party Activist Surprise Choice to Head French Region
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LILLE, France — An astonished biology teacher and part-time activist in the Greens party on Tuesday was elected president of France’s northern region, one of the most industrialized areas and the worst hit by unemployment.
Marie-Christine Blandin, 39, elected with Socialist and Communist support after all-night political haggling, became the first ecologist to head a region in France.
“This is a surprise and a tremendous challenge,” she said.
A left-right deadlock handed the presidency of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a historic bastion of the ruling Socialists, to one of the smallest groups in the regional Assembly.
The more utopian of two ecology movements, the Greens won just 6.4% of the vote in the region of 4 million residents March 22.
The region, center of France’s troubled textile industry and a major chemicals and steel producer, has seen hosts of factories close and is at the center of major highway and high-speed train projects to link France to northern Europe.
It includes the major working-class cities of Lille, Roubaix-Tourcoing, Calais and Dunkirk.
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