EPT
ON THE ROAD TO THE SECOND ROUND
So, during these two weeks of interlude between the first and the second round, N. Sarkozy and F. Hollande kept campaigning in a context where the voters of Marine Le Pen (17,9 % in the first round) were the people to care for. Hollande claimed that the policies is advocating should reassure them, and didn't make them concessions (even though his discourse has became slightly tougher on immigration these last couple of days).
Sarkozy on the other hand has openly called the National Front voters to vote for him, and he held most of his latest political meetings in cities and regions in which the National Front had its best results. His ministry of defence, Gérard Longuet, has even gave an interview to a far-right newspaper, Minute, in which he advocated a reconciliation between the Union for a Popular Movement and the National Front in order to prevent Hollande from being elected president. This particular interview created a ruckus among the Union for a Popular Movement members, because for more than thirty years, the prominent right party in France (Rally for The Republic, now known as the Union for a Popular Movement) never allowed itself to have anyhting to do with the National Front (it is called the policy of the "Cordon Sanitaire", i.e. the sanitary cordon).
On May 2nd, both candidates battled each other in the traditional Presidential debate. So far, since its inception in the 1974 election, this debate never reversed the trends (which currently say that Hollande is the favourite of the election). The debate was quite heated, and according to most of journalists, there were no winner or loser. See how the voters perceived the debate here (in French).
This period also had its pieces of drama, the worst of it being that, during this last week, two journalists from two national media (the newspaper Mediapart and the news channel BFM TV) were attacked by Sarkozy's supporters during his meetings.
Concerning the notable candidates who didn't make it to the second round, Marine Le Pen (17,9 % in the first round) asked her voters to leave the ballot blank on May 1st (according to the opinion polls, most of them should vote for N. Sarkozy though). Jean-Luc Mélenchon (11,11 % in the first round) called for a unimous vote for Hollande right after the first round. François Bayrou (9,13 % in the first round) announced on May 3rd that he would vote for Hollande, but didn't asked his voters to do the same.
The most recent opinion polls give Hollande elected president with 53,5%. The second round will take place on May 6th, and the official results will be released at 08:00 PM CET.
Further reading:
CNN.com : France's presidential rivals trade insults in debate
Time.com : French Presidential Election: Marine Le Pen Haunts the Sarkozy-Hollande Debate
Time.com: A Dangerous Game: Why Sarkozy’s Bid for Far-Right Votes May Backfire
FIRST ROUND RESULTS
- François Hollande - Socialist Party : 28,63%
- Nicolas Sarkozy - Union for a Popular Movement : 27,18%
- Marine Le Pen - National Front : 17,9%
- Jean-Luc Mélenchon - Left Front : 11,11%
- François Bayrou - Democratic Movement : 9,13%
- Eva Joly - Europe Ecology The Greens : 2,31%
- The Others : less than 2%
- Abstention Rate: 20,53%
François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy proceed to the second round, which is scheduled to take place on May 6th. While this outcome was quite expected by the opinion polls, the huge upset is the score of National Front's Marine Le Pen. Not only she is way higher than expected, but she also realised the best score ever for her party (even higher than her father in 2002, when he made it to the second round), which turn the National Front into one of the most powerful Far-Right party in Europe.
Both Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Eva Joly are now supporting François Hollande for the second round. Marine Le Pen announced on May 1st that she will leave the ballot blank, hence don't giving any directive to her voters.François Bayrou has yet to speak his mind, he is scheduled to make an announcement either tomorrow or friday.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nmqZK.gif)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I just realised that there wasn't a thread about the ongoing presidential election in France, so I figured that I would start one. After all, it might be a good opportunity to give an insight to foreigners.
Why does it matter? (at least for us French people)
France has a semi-presidential system, meaning that the president is more than a purely ceremonial figurehead, he actually rules the day-to-day administration of the country alongside the prime minister. However, unlike in a true presidential system (like in the USA), the governement is responsible to the legislature and can be forced to resign through a motion of no confidence. But, make no mistake, the particularity of the French system is that the president has proportionally more powers than most of his occidental counterparts, because there aren't lots of counter powers. Even though there were a few progress in terms of decentralisation in the past decades, the régions have nowhere near as much prerogatives than Germany's länders or USA's states. And more importantly, the fact that the legislative elections (in which the members of parliament are elected) are held right after the presidential election makes it very unlikely that the elected president's party can't provide an absolute majority. And once this absolute majority is obtained, it's virtually impossible for the opposition to have any kind of political weight, even if it has an overwhelming support from the population. So basically, the elected president is assured to be the most prominent if not the only policy-maker of the country for his/her 5-year term.
How does it work?
Well it's pretty simple. Under the Fifth Republic's Constitution, Any French citizen who is over 18 years old and not deprived of his civil rights is eligible, but at first, he/she has to be sponsored by 500 elected officials (mayors, regional and general councilors, senators, MPs, members of the European parliament... for a total of nearly 42,000 in the whole country). This particular disposition was meant to prevent ridiculous candidates, but nowadays it comes under scrutiny as some little parties's candidates struggle to obtain them, and sometimes fail to do so. In this 2012 election, it's notably the case of Dominique de Villepin (Prime Minister from 2005 to 2007, who is more known over the Atlantic as the Foreign Minister who opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the UN) who won't be able to participate in the election.
Then, on April 22nd, the first round will take place by universal suffrage (one citizen, one vote), and the two candidates who earned the most votes will proceed to the second round. The latter will take place on May 6th, and of course will decide who gets to rule the country for the five next years.
Now, let's have a look on the candidates.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Flickr_-_europeanpeoplesparty_-_EPP_Summit_October_2010_%28105%29.jpg/156px-Flickr_-_europeanpeoplesparty_-_EPP_Summit_October_2010_%28105%29.jpg)
Nicolas Sarkozy - Union for a Popular Movement - Center-Right/Right/Far-Right
The current president, who runs for a second term. At the beginning of his political career, he was the long-time mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, the wealthiest town in France, which allowed him to meet and to develop friendships with press groups and industrial groups CEOs. Before his presidency, he was the president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine (wealthiest département of the country as well), and the minister of the interior.
During his first term, he notably did a high-scale fiscal reform (a fiscal stimulus package that allegedly aimed at reviving the economic growth) featuring the removal of the inheritance tax, a tax cap for the richest households, and a tax exemption on overtime. Not only it didn't had any significant impact on the growth (not helped by the 2008 financial crisis and the ongoing debt crisis though), but the Court of Audit (an independant institution charged with conducting financial and legislative audits) claim that this reform actually increased the public debt twice as luch as the financial crisis itself. Sarkozy's first term also featured lots of laws aimed at decrease the crime. Another major policy of his term was the RGPP (General Review of Public Policies), a series of measures aiming to reduce public spending while increasing the efficiency and quality of public action, which notably consists in replacing only one civil servant for two retiring.
Concerning the foreign policy, he began by a rapprochement with the USA, and lately did the same with Germany (Germany which had become his economic model). Sarkozy didn't support the Arab Spring at first (the Tunisian president Ben Ali being a traditionnal ally of France right-wing parties), and tried to make it even by leading the war in Lybia.
For his second presidential campaign, he chose to keep the winning combination of his 2007 campaign: he tries to seduce the voters who are usually voting for the far-right National Front, and in the meantime makes consensual proposals aiming at every categories of voters. He is against the gay marriage, and recently threatened to pull France out of the Schengen agreement if the European Union doesn't do any progress with regard to the management of migration flows (he wants to divide by two the legal immigration as well). He also wants to add a budgetary discipline rule in the constitution itself and to create a tax on financial transactions. He is also a strong advocate of Nuclear power plants. Last but no least, he wants to renegotiate tax treaties with foreign countries, so that expatriates who pay less taxes in their country of residence pay the difference to France.
It should be noted that, seen from France (I don't know how Germans feel it), Angela Merkel is regarded as a strong a somewhat inappropriate support of Nicolas Sarkozy, since she is expected to participate in at least one of his political meetings.
He is expected to be at around 25-28% in the first round (proceeding to the second), and to lose the second round with 42-46%.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande_-_Janvier_2012.jpg/320px-Fran%C3%A7ois_Hollande_-_Janvier_2012.jpg)
François Hollande - Socialist Party - Center-Left/Left
The main outsider, who is also regarded as the favorite of the election by the opinion polls. He used to be the first secretary of the Socialist Party for roughly eleven years, from 1997 to 2008, and is currently the president of the General Council of Corrèze as well as a Member of Parliament. As the first secretary of the party, he built himself the reputation of someone able to make people from different political views working together, but at the prize of flabby consensus and of a relative inertia.
When François Hollande announced that would be a candidate in the primary election to select the Socialist Party candidate a year ago, it was safe to say that basically noone thought that he would succeed, since Dominique Strauss-Kahn was heavily favorite. We all know how things turned out for DSK, meaning that Hollande is truly a candidate by default for the Socialist Party (his most dangerous opponents in the primary being the current first secretary and her total lack of charism, and the loser of the 2007 presidential election second round).
His list of policies includes the creation of a band of income tax set to 75% for the income exceeding 1,000,000 € per year, the separation of retail activities from riskier investment-banking businesses, raising taxes for big corporations, banks and the wealthy, creating 60,000 teaching jobs, bringing the official retirement age back down to 60 from 62 for those who have contributed more than 41 years, granting marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples. Hollande also claims that he won't ratify the European budgetary discipline Treaty in its current state (which he believes to be too much emphasized on the austerity), and that he wants to add provisions concerning economic growth. This particular policy alledgedly led some high-profile European heads of states and governements such as Angela Merkel and David Cameron to boycott him and to refuse to meet him prior to the election. He also advocates reducing the share of nuclear power in electricity generation from 75 to 50% in favor of renewable energy sources.
Even though he was very high in the opinion polls a few eeks ago, he's slowly and steadily losing ground to Sarkozy, notably because he cultivates an uncertainty about several of his policies. He is expected to be at around 28-30% in the first round (proceeding to the second), and to win the second round with 54-58%.
Fun fact #1: the Socialist Party's candidate for the last presidential election, Ségolène Royal, has been François Hollande's domestic partner for 30 years or so, and they had four kids together.
Fun fact #2: His tendancy to seek flabby consensus granted him the infamous nickname Flanby.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Front_National_2010-05-01_n04.jpg/160px-Front_National_2010-05-01_n04.jpg)
Marine Le Pen - National Front - Far-Right
If her name sounds familiar to you, it's because her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been the face of the far-right currents in France for the last 40 years, and infamously reached the second round of the 2002 Presidential Election. As the new leader of the National Front, she has worked to mitigate the notorious reputation of the party, and to makes it look more like a regular right-wing movement. However, her list of policies fits right with the traditionnal National Front policy: pulling France out of the Schengen agreement and out of the Euro (and take back the Franc as the national currency in order to print more money), decreasing France's contribution to the European budget... She's also an advocate of the concentration of powers in government, and want a drastic decrease of legal immigration.
She is expected to be at around 10-20% in the first round (not proceeding to the second). Though it should be noted that the National Front's candidate score is almost always underestimated in opinion polls, because interviewees sometimes won't diclose that they are going to vote for a far-right current (the best example being the polls failing to see Jean-Marie Le Pen being at the second round of the 2002 election).
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Francois_bayrou_close.jpg/163px-Francois_bayrou_close.jpg)
François Bayrou - Democratic Movement - Centrist
François Bayrou is a former long-time ally of the prominent right-wing party Rally for the Republic, who decided in 2002 to reject the merge of his centrist party in the Union for a Popular Movement (Rally for the Republic plus several little rigth-wing parties). He made a little score in the 2002 Presidential election (6,84%), and became more and more isolated in the political scene, as he criticised both the Union for a Popular Movement and the Socialist Party (he denounces the de facto two-party system). In the 2007 presidential election, he took the political establishment by surprise with a 18,57% score in the first round (a clear third behind the front-runners), which made him the much courted man in the country, since both the second round candidates wanted him to join them (though he didn't ask his voters to vote for one over the other).
In this 2012 election, he claims that he wants France to take a greater role in the European Union's affairs, to promote job creation, an improvement of educational standards, improved conditions in the troubled suburbs, a decrease of government spending, a balanced budget and a stronger European Union.
He is expected to be at around 11-13% in the first round (not proceeding to the second).
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Jean-Luc_Melenchon_Front_de_Gauche_2009-03-08.jpg/160px-Jean-Luc_Melenchon_Front_de_Gauche_2009-03-08.jpg)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon - Left Front - Left/Far-Left
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, senator of the Essone department, is a former prominent member of the Socialist Party who took the German's Linkspartei as an example to create the Left Party. For the Presidential election, he's running as the candidate of the Left Front, an electoral coalition composed by the Left Party, the Communist Party, and several little far-left and ecologist parties.
As such, his main promises include the increase of the minimum wage from roughly 1400 € per month to 1700 € per month, to set a tight control on the rent as well as creating a financial transaction tax (0,1% on the purchase of a share). He is opposed to any kind of golden rule on the deficits. About the energy mix, he wants to organise a public referendum on the gradual phasing out of nuclear power. Concerning social issues, he supports the gay marriage as well as voting right for the foreigners in local elections.
He is expected to be at around 10% in the first round (not proceeding to the second), which is taking most commentators by surprise, as far-left movements were usually at 3 to 5% in the two last elections.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Eva_Joly_Europe_Ecologie_2009-06-03.jpg/160px-Eva_Joly_Europe_Ecologie_2009-06-03.jpg)
Eva Joly - Europe Ecology-The Greens - Left/Far-Left
Eva Joly is quite an atypical candidate. While most of the politicians in charge in the country have been in politics for years (and will probably keep doing so until their retirement), she came very late to politics. Before that, she made her name as an anti-corruption judge who wasn't affraid of working on high-profile cases that disturbed the establishment (the businessman and former socialist minister Bernard Tapie, the bank Crédit Lyonnais, and most famously the Elf Aquitaine case). She became EELV's candidate by winning its primary, and notably advocates an energetic transition from nuclear to renewable energies as well as a wider "ecological transition". She would like to create an European market of eurobonds allowing part of the public debt of each country to be europeanised. She wants to bring back the retirement at the age of 60, she supports gay marriage, and want to get rid of the Budgetary discipline European treaty (which would be replaced by a "Ecological and Social Developement Pact"). Quite interestingly, she's one of the only two candidates who don't want to specifically favor French industry, as she'd rather favor the European firms in general (the other being the far-left candidate from Workers Struggle, Nathalie Arthaud).
Before the campaign really kicks off, Europe Ecology-The Greens signed an agreemeent with the Socialist Party which granted them sixty easy spots for the parliament in the next legislative elections, while in exchange the Greens agreed to reduce their requirements concerning the closure of nuclear plants. Eva Joly hadn't been informed of the negociations until after the agreement was signed, which led to some controversy among the Greens, especially since the agreement tempered with the Greens anti-nuclear commitment. The Socialist Party was criticised as well (for its weakness in the negociations), since it was offering a lot (60 potential spots of MP) and was given a few (a blurry agreement with a candidate who was already very low in the polls). Several local Socialist Party leaders disclosed that they wouldn't respect the agreement (notably the mayor of Lyon, Gérard Collomb), and now that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is decently high in the polls, it's not impossible that the agreement never enters into force.
She is expected to be at around 2-5% in the first round (not proceeding to the second).
Fun fact #1: She is the only candidate who is not French by birth (she's Norwegian).
There are four more competitors (three from Trotskyist Communist parties, and a right/far-right candidate who wants to pull France out of the European Union), but since all of them are around 1%in the polls, I won't be go into more detail about them.
Just so you know, the campaign is currently suspended because of the dramatic events that occurred in Toulouse this morning (three children and an adult killed in a shooting in a school, which perpetrator is believed to be the murderer of three paratroopers killed last week, see this thread). I'll try to keep the OP updated as much as possible.
I wasn't able to find any website in English gathering exhaustive and comparative informations about the candidates yet, so for the moment I can only link you ressources in French: Voxe.org (thanks to FranzP for the heads-up!), Le Figaro, and Le Monde, three policies comparator.
