Marine Le Pen said Sunday's results showed that "this is no longer solely a protest vote".
But it can be assumed that many were casting a protest vote against Labour.
Conservative councillor Peter Bedford, who lost his seat to a UKIP candidate, called it a protest vote.
"It is a traditional midterm protest vote and it's found its lightning conductor through UKIP, " Travers said.
By closing ranks against the Blok, the other parties have given it a monopoly on the protest vote.
But for many, especially at this time of year, giving is a cheerful, productive protest vote against the growing state.
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Experts believe the party has little chance of garnering enough of the protest vote to reach the 5 percent threshold.
The trials of coalition government having evidently seen off the protest vote, the party now urgently needs a core vote.
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Britain's nationalist party appeared to be the recipient of a sizeable protest vote against the political elite and the EU, analysts said.
With both standing on mildly reformist platforms, they looked likelier to split and weaken the protest vote than to oust Mr Ahmadinejad.
In past elections Nigel Farage asked voters to "lend us your vote", a tacit acknowledgement that voting UKIP was a temporary, protest vote.
However, the protest vote over remuneration is an increase over last year, when 83 per cent of votes cast supported Apple's "say-on-pay" proposal.
He has a big personality and a lot of people are voting for him as a protest vote, rather than for his policies.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a statement that the National Front's score "shows that the protest vote must not be underestimated or trivialised".
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What is certain is that no protest vote, no matter how large, can alter the fundamental political choices facing a country: Reality can't be voted away.
But while many called the local elections indicative of a protest vote, UKIP leader Farage dismissed any suggestion the UKIP surge would be a short-lived phenomenon.
He told the BBC that some supporters had not adjusted to the degree of compromise required in coalition and those wishing to register a protest vote had gone elsewhere.
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That frustration appears to have manifested itself in the increased protest vote over executive compensation, amid growing debate about whether Apple should increase its payouts to shareholders.
In a climate of widespread public disillusionment with politics, comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo is also making gains by capturing the protest vote with his Five Star Movement.
Conservative Spencer Flower, who was re-elected in Verwood and Three Legged Cross, denied UKIP was a threat and insisted the party's appeal is as a "protest vote" against the coalition government.
Without that, his authority could be fatally weakened - although ministers will, no doubt, attempt to write off poor performance as a "mid term" protest vote, as they did at Dunfermline.
It is true that his victory in South Carolina was a protest vote against Mitt's centrism, but there's a reason why Republicans chose him over Rick Perry or Rick Santorum.
He added he did not believe the party's success was down to a protest vote and said it was "insulting" to suggest people did not know who to vote for based on policies.
Diplomats said they believed Odinga was not likely to protest the vote in a manner that would increase the chances of violence, but rather honor his pledge to respect the result and petition the courts with any grievances.
At the protest following the vote, which was attended by dissenting MPs and students of the university, protesters denounced the "traitor MPs" who voted against the reforms.
Knappenberger's film chronicles the rise of Anonymous from a disparate group hanging out in the forums of notorious website 4chan to the day recently when members of the Polish parliament, in protest of a vote they said would restrict Web freedom, donned their own Guy Fawkes masks in solidarity with the group.
Elvira Orozco, a 31-year-old business owner, said she planned to sit out the vote to protest Maduro's swearing-in Friday.
But some senior coalition leaders are reported to have withdrawn from the vote in protest over Mr Hitto's lack of military experience.
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The protest comes ahead of a vote on a European Union proposal to ban the use of the chemicals.
The protest came ahead of a vote on a European Union proposal to ban the use of the chemicals.
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