French Presidential Elections
So today were the French presidential elections, with expatriated voters casting their votes yesterday. Stéphanie Lallier, an acquaintance who works at the Consulate here in Houston, reminded to come to polling place yesterday ... except I am still registered to vote in Strasbourg and not in the US. I will have to remember to register in San Francisco once I move there.
French newspaper Le Monder has the complete number here.
Apparently a record rate of participation, with about 63% of eligible voters casting a vote. Jean-Marie Le Pen received 11.34% of the votes, which might prove my hypothesis that the same number of far right extremists vote over and over again out of a sense of persecution (similarly as the Republican Party in the US ... Whoops, did I call the GOP a far-right party?). This would explain how he managed to squeeze himself to the second round 5 years ago by receiving 18% of the vote, with around 55% of voters participating.
As for the more mainstream candidate, no surprise really, although I am a bit worried to see Sarkozy (Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle or UMP, conservative) as President of the Republic, with a healthy headstart of 30% of the votes, against Ségolène Royal's 24.73% (Parti Socialiste). François Bayrou, the centrist candidate of the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) received 18.33%. The UDF votes has traditionally gone to the RPR, the Gaullist party that would later become the UMP. Of course, the UMP has veered tremendously toward the right, becoming even more of a law-and-order party than it was when Charles Pasqua was a member (Pasqua who was also Minister of the Interior in the early 90s, someone I dislike enormously. He has since left the RPR to join Philippe de Villier's party). Thanks to this direction, Sarkozy will also take most of the votes that would usually go to Le Pen. Most of his program, after all, was an attempt to court those voters, by using the same lines as Le Pen, such as his harsher view of immigration (he has called many immigrants "Racaille," which could be translated into "scum") and his willingness to change citizenship and naturalization laws, a move even Pasqua had not dared (as they are right now, one is defined as a French citizen by two means, being born on French soil or from one or two French parents. And then there is also naturalization).
Alex Ross just wrote to me "Sarkozy's idea of [a] 'ministry of immigration and national identity' sounds so frighteningly fascist."
Another frightening sight would be the scores earned by the other parties of the French left, Dominique Voynet (Green Party) getting 1.56% of the votes and Marie-George Buffet (Parti Communiste Français, PCF) 1.9%. Those parties traditionally receive between 9 and 14% of the votes. This year, they scored about as high as Arlette Laguillier of Lutte Ouvrière, the trotskist party. The PCF had already embarked on a downward slide since 1989, but it is surprising to see the Green Party scoring so low. Meanwhile, the LCR (center-left) scores a surprisingly high 4.38%.
So, provided that the two candidates split the UDF votes (9.16% each) and that all the votes from the FN go to Sarkozy, we have the following results:
Royal: 24.73 + 9.16 (half of the UDF) + 4.38 (LCR) + 1.9 (PCF) + 1.56 (Green) + 1.48 (LO) + 1.4 (Altermondialistes) + 0.38 (Parti des Travailleurs) = 44.99%
Sarkozy: 30.42 + 9.16 (UDF) + 11.34 (FN) + 2.55 (MPF) = 53.47%
I hope I am wrong.
Meanwhile, in Texas and Oklahoma, votes went largely to Sarkozy, quite unsurprisingly to Sarkozy. Many French immigrants to the States tend to be more conservative than the French population, having moved to this country either to pay fewer taxes or to start a business more easily or a combination of the two. Stéphanie has the results on her blog.
French newspaper Le Monder has the complete number here.
Apparently a record rate of participation, with about 63% of eligible voters casting a vote. Jean-Marie Le Pen received 11.34% of the votes, which might prove my hypothesis that the same number of far right extremists vote over and over again out of a sense of persecution (similarly as the Republican Party in the US ... Whoops, did I call the GOP a far-right party?). This would explain how he managed to squeeze himself to the second round 5 years ago by receiving 18% of the vote, with around 55% of voters participating.
As for the more mainstream candidate, no surprise really, although I am a bit worried to see Sarkozy (Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle or UMP, conservative) as President of the Republic, with a healthy headstart of 30% of the votes, against Ségolène Royal's 24.73% (Parti Socialiste). François Bayrou, the centrist candidate of the Union pour la Démocratie Française (UDF) received 18.33%. The UDF votes has traditionally gone to the RPR, the Gaullist party that would later become the UMP. Of course, the UMP has veered tremendously toward the right, becoming even more of a law-and-order party than it was when Charles Pasqua was a member (Pasqua who was also Minister of the Interior in the early 90s, someone I dislike enormously. He has since left the RPR to join Philippe de Villier's party). Thanks to this direction, Sarkozy will also take most of the votes that would usually go to Le Pen. Most of his program, after all, was an attempt to court those voters, by using the same lines as Le Pen, such as his harsher view of immigration (he has called many immigrants "Racaille," which could be translated into "scum") and his willingness to change citizenship and naturalization laws, a move even Pasqua had not dared (as they are right now, one is defined as a French citizen by two means, being born on French soil or from one or two French parents. And then there is also naturalization).
Alex Ross just wrote to me "Sarkozy's idea of [a] 'ministry of immigration and national identity' sounds so frighteningly fascist."
Another frightening sight would be the scores earned by the other parties of the French left, Dominique Voynet (Green Party) getting 1.56% of the votes and Marie-George Buffet (Parti Communiste Français, PCF) 1.9%. Those parties traditionally receive between 9 and 14% of the votes. This year, they scored about as high as Arlette Laguillier of Lutte Ouvrière, the trotskist party. The PCF had already embarked on a downward slide since 1989, but it is surprising to see the Green Party scoring so low. Meanwhile, the LCR (center-left) scores a surprisingly high 4.38%.
So, provided that the two candidates split the UDF votes (9.16% each) and that all the votes from the FN go to Sarkozy, we have the following results:
Royal: 24.73 + 9.16 (half of the UDF) + 4.38 (LCR) + 1.9 (PCF) + 1.56 (Green) + 1.48 (LO) + 1.4 (Altermondialistes) + 0.38 (Parti des Travailleurs) = 44.99%
Sarkozy: 30.42 + 9.16 (UDF) + 11.34 (FN) + 2.55 (MPF) = 53.47%
I hope I am wrong.
Meanwhile, in Texas and Oklahoma, votes went largely to Sarkozy, quite unsurprisingly to Sarkozy. Many French immigrants to the States tend to be more conservative than the French population, having moved to this country either to pay fewer taxes or to start a business more easily or a combination of the two. Stéphanie has the results on her blog.
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