France 2012: Official Results Thread

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

Well, to sum it, yeah, bad turn for Sarkozy, he is not ahead, FN is bigger than ever especially when you consider the turnout (in this sense maybe the comparison with MLP doing less than her father here or there might not be totally relevant, since 2002 had the records of abstention), Hollande is several points ahead of him, Mélenchon isn't a danger for him because his score is finally quite low compared to last scores of the French far-left as a whole, so Centrists won't have to be much afraid of Hollande having to do big concessions to Mélenchon, moreover the Centrist vote in this election is some people who have voted for Bayrou, that is for someone of which the main job has been to do some anti-Sarkozysme during 5 years (along with more or less the whole French political class that wasn't on Sarkozy's side). Sarkozy will have to hunt a lot of FN votes, and it would make flee Centrists still more...

Seems only the debate could save Sarkozy so far, or a war, or some major riots in some rough districts eventually.

If Hollande 'wins' it would be a totally Rajoy 'victory', doing nothing, saying nothing, rather invisible campaign, mainly oriented at hitting on the opponent.

If Hollande 'wins' then, the UMP will be totally destroyed. Coppé is totally weak as a leader, Fillon is over tired, and Juppé is old, and you have all youngs with giant teeth like NKM and overall Wauqiez and Yade which won't help. This while Marine Le Pen is in a total momentum now. And who will try to extend a new movement the further she can to the traditional Right. Sarkozy wanted eat FN vote? The backlash could eventually be terrible.

Législatives will be quite important.

While I've been over annoyed by PS during years and years, I always planed to finish with a Hollande ballot in the hand, but I actually tend to wonder what would be the worse for the country when you look at the whole picture. There is no momentum at all around Hollande, no enthusiasm, and this in a totally shaked up epoch while PS wouldn't much more solutions than Sarkozy had to face the challenges we're facing nowadays...

While I don't fear an actual far-right danger electorally, as in taking the 'power' (yeah for the part of power which is left to this political system anyhow...) in France, and in Europe as a whole I'd say (next interesting thing to monitor in this regard will be Greece), the coming times could actually become heavy psychologically.

C'mon! This Front is more needed than the other one!

It's a bad night.

[Beet]

Is it really so bad? (it's hard for me to say this since I'm usually aggressively pessimistic)

First of all, aren't there numerous other left-wing candidates on the ballot? (Poutou, Arthaud,Cheminade) When I sum these up I get about 13.1%. Compared to 2007, when you sum up the far left candidates you get around 9.4%. So the far left did improve.

Secondly, 18% for FN- really that much surprise? Yes it's two points higher than her polling, but the far-right frequently underpolls-we knew that. Plus at the beginning of the year she was polling at 19-20%. Yes she did better than her father in 2002, but in 2002 there was no economic crisis. Now you have this movement (FN) saying for years that the euro was going to be a problem, and you have this massive crisis. No surprise at all.

I've taken another look at Marine's positions- she supports allowing the government to borrow from the central bank at low interest. This is a sane position-- arguably the Bundesbank position is far more insane than that. She supports the Havana Charter, a Keynesian idea to stabilize trade imbalances between countries. The last problem Keynes worked on at the end of his life. I don't see this as a problem.

Overall, except that she is associated with FN, I think some of her positions should be taken and co-opted by the left. Melenchon or someone like him should continue to build on his movement, perhaps moderate a bit to attract more voters. France must learn to say 'no' or at least credibly threaten it or Merkel will never wake up. Now France has Spain, Italy, and possibly Netherlands at her side! The majority of Europe is waking up.

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

I can see what people mean now by saying it's overtly simplistic to describe Paris as right wing with Le Pen's performance there.

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

Well, about the rest of French far-left, they really can't be considered serious 'blahblalah CAPITALISM IS EVIL!....blahblhablha....ELECTIONS ARE USELESS! WE NEED A NEW REVOLUTION!...blablhablha...F**K IT ALL! WE KNOW THE GOOD SOLUTIONS...blhablhablha...ALL OF THIS IS A BOURGEOISIE CONSPIRACY!...blhablhablha...ETC!'

Something like that. No, it really doesn't help. Mélenchon was by far the most constructive with a quite pedagogic and well articulated discourse, which is why even if personally I don't believe in solutions within the economico-political system in which we are living, and while I was as much annoyed by this over tired PCF, I found Mélenchon quite refreshing and thought about voting for him, and that something could happen around him since the end of 2010, before the world 'entered into Revolution'... And when you see the blow that is campaign had, it can only be disappointing.

But, that being said, yeah, as I kept saying, and even several times tonight, a movement like this could really have a future, and even if I don't see what he proposes as a finality at all, I see most of what he proposes as some steps that goes in the right direction to me.

But, the other point is the actual surprise of tonight. FN biggest than ever. The very big and very positive dynamic around Mélenchon's campaign makes that, besides the reasons you gave to explain her raise, which would be rather relevant, such a FN score is surprising, because such a FDG score is surprising.

Oh, and, about Marine Le Pen's positioning on such or such, yeah, you might read fancy things here or there that want to make her movement look sane, but when you hear her barking all over, you understand like...an other kind of ambiance.

So, yeah, I'd personally be rather optimistic for Europe on the Middle term (thankfully the shortly middle possible), but still if someone like Marine Le Pen takes a big importance, and at worst plays one of the most important roles, even if I think all this system turns more and more into a less and less relevant joke, once again, on the short term, psychologically, could be heavy.

We'll know more in 14 days.

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

Trivia that I just read:

New-York (Upper East Side only): Sarkozy 60% - Hollande 19%

Biggest MLP score:

Brachay (Haute-Marne): 72% (!)

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

Cheminade 22,73% and Hollande 13,64% in Varmonzey (Vosges)!

(5 votes for Cheminade against 3 for Hollande )

[True Federalist]

lol, seems like Le Figaro is almost happy of that big Le Pen:

Marine Le Pen's breakthrough relaunches the 2nd run

MLP's strength is the most unexpected result and hence the most newsworthy.  I'd expected her to do better than her polling numbers, but not this much better.

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

lol, seems like Le Figaro is almost happy of that big Le Pen:

Marine Le Pen's breakthrough relaunches the 2nd run

MLP's strength is the most unexpected result and hence the most newsworthy.

Yeah, but one has to know that Le Figaro is a UMP/Sarkozy hack thing. Then this 'relaunches' can be seen as 'cool, France is on the far-right, good news for Sarkozy'...

[True Federalist]

Anyways...

What's the difference between A, B, and C?

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

Damn it, Cheminade doesn't gives voting instructions.

[All life is a blur of Republicans and meat.]

So what are Sarkozy's odds of survival? Maybe 1/5 or something like that?

[Meeker]

He hasn't led Hollande in a poll since late 2009. Put a fork in him.

[redcommander]

I refuse to believe that France will elect Hollande.

[asexual trans victimologist]

I refuse to believe that France will elect Hollande.

...

...I genuinely pity you.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I refuse to believe that France will elect Hollande.

Well, I'm sorry to break this to you but Sarkozy and his conservative brethren have screwed it royally here in Europe.
Payback is a bitch.

[Tender Branson]

I refuse to believe that France will elect Hollande.

Don't worry, Sarkozy still has a good chance to pull this out in round 2, no matter what the polls say right now.

[redcommander]

I refuse to believe that France will elect Hollande.

Don't worry, Sarkozy still has a good chance to pull this out in round 2, no matter what the polls say right now.

Are you being serious or sarcastic?

[Tender Branson]

I refuse to believe that France will elect Hollande.

Don't worry, Sarkozy still has a good chance to pull this out in round 2, no matter what the polls say right now.

Are you being serious or sarcastic?

Serious.

[I left.]

What could really change the direction of this election? Strong debate performance? As much as I'd prefer to see Sarkozy re-elected, I don't see why he'd convince voters in these final two weeks of why they should give him another chance.

[redcommander]

What could really change the direction of this election? Strong debate performance? As much as I'd prefer to see Sarkozy re-elected, I don't see why he'd convince voters in these final two weeks of why they should give him another chance.

Maybe there's some scandal with Hollande that no one knows about yet?

[I left.]

What could really change the direction of this election? Strong debate performance? As much as I'd prefer to see Sarkozy re-elected, I don't see why he'd convince voters in these final two weeks of why they should give him another chance.

Maybe there's some scandal with Hollande that no one knows about yet?

Yeah, or aliens might rig the election. Guess we shouldn't give up hope. Who knows, right?

[Formerly Californian Tony]

So what are Sarkozy's odds of survival? Maybe 1/5 or something like that?

More like 1/20, to be objective. He would have to pick 4 points in two weeks.

[politicus]

It's funny that they keep around some communes that no one lives in any more.

Ah well, yeah, you can find some with about 15 people here and there...

There are those too, in addition to the ones that literally have no one.

So if you moved there, you could be your own mayor?

[Sam Spade]

So what are Sarkozy's odds of survival? Maybe 1/5 or something like that?

1%.  And I'm being generous there just because the PS is guaranteed to take the wrong strategy to winning, i.e. let's run to not lose, which is the only way of losing.  A competent party and candidate would be 100% assured of election in this type of "Mickey Mouse" struggle.

I'm tempted to also say that the PS chances in 2017 are somewhere around 1% also, but that is unnecessary dick-waving.

[Insula Dei]

Btw, I thought Melenchon's speech yesterday struck most of the right notes from the perspective of getting rid of Sarkozy. 'Fight without asking anything in return, only the privilege of being able to fight.' That attitude should probably guarantee a quite easy transfer of support towards Hollande.