French President Francois Hollande's failure to honour election promises on jobs has brought inevitably poor results in Sunday's first round of municipal elections.

His Socialist Party administration's adherence to orthodox neoliberal policies gave victory to the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and some gains to the racist National Front (FN).

Most striking was the FN's outright triumph in former mining town Henin-Beaumont in the Pas-de-Calais department, where its candidate Steeve Briois took 50.26 per cent of the vote and won the mayoralty.

The front had further encouragement before next Sunday's second round as it built on popular resentment at government failure to prioritise jobs and living standards.

Its sitting mayor in Orange was re-elected with 59.82 per cent, while FN candidates led the field in Perpignan with 33.8 per cent, in Frejus with 40.2 per cent, in Beziers with 45 per cent and in Avignon with 29.4 per cent.

In Marseille, the front overtook the Socialists with 23.16 of the votes, for second place behind the conservative UMP candidate.

The Communist Party (PCF) did, however, gain 12 new communes in the first round, announcing that the results "show that in the great majority of communes with a PCF mayor the lists led by a communist are well-placed" for the second round.

But the party also pointed out that lists led by PCF and Left Front mayors found themselves opposed by Socialist Party lists in Saint-Denis, Bagnolet, Ivry, Chevilly la Rue, Echirolles and Saint Martin d'Heres.

The elections were marked by a record abstention rate of 38 per cent which, the PCF said, "expresses an increasingly bitter disappointment at the lack of policy responses to popular demands as well as the 'nausea' caused by a political system removed from the concerns and needs of the many."

The Socialist and Green parties are committed officially to the "broadest republican unity" in the second round to minimise the disaster in the making.

"Our rule is to beat the right and to block the extreme right wherever the threat exists," said the PCF.