Right-wing unions have taken a beating in elections at the Paris bastion of far-right student politics, the Assas Paris II University.

The extreme right-wing student list, Union-Droit, which campaigned with a black rat emblem, lost little ground, but the mainstream right-wing union UNI saw its support plummet.

The setback confirms the far right's receding influence since a university clampdown in 1995, when ringleaders were jailed for several weeks and the group lost its university premises after a series of assaults on left-wing students.

The Union-Droit list, backed by the National Front's student movement, remained virtually stable, its 6.87 per cent of the ballot down 0.2 per cent on the previous poll. But UNI lost a third of its support, falling back from nearly 21 per cent to just under 14 per cent of votes cast in elections for student seats on university councils.

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In one ugly incident during the election campaign, a group of far-right students including a Union-Droit candidate attacked two students in the Assas main hall. One filed a complaint with the police after being hit and burnt with cigarettes in the face.

Although the main left-wing student union UNEF-ID lost votes, slipping from 26 per cent to 23 per cent, an anti-racist list, Asterix, saw its support rise by over 4 per cent to nearly 11 per cent.

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The national evaluation council recently noted that Assas has suffered because of violent extremist students for over 20 years.