The first round of the parliamentary by-election the 8th constituency of Gironde was held a week ago. The seat, which claims the “largest seat in France” status (around with 5 other constituencies, of which all are bogus), stretches from the wealthy and rightie Arcachon to the more blue-collar and leftie areas in the rest of the constituency. The seat has been held since 2002 by Marie-Hélène des Esgaulx (UMP), who was elected Senator in September and prompted this by-election. The seat was held from 1997 to 2002 by the Socialist François Deluga. The UDF won the seat in 1988 and 1993. The media didn’t say anything about this election, or else I would have posted a more complete profile of the constituency. Deluga is running in a third attempt to regain his seat lost in 2002. Yves Foulon, Mayor of Arcachon, ran as a DVD dissident candidate against des Esgaulx in 2002. This constituency is also one of the top CPNT constituencies: Saint-Josse polled over 11% here in 2002. The FN used to poll double digits in its good days here, over 12% in 1997 and Le Pen won nearly 15% in 2002.

François Deluga (PS) 43.77 (+12.27)
Yves Foulon (UMP) 40.95 (-6.6)
Emmanuel Perrin (CPNT) 3.78 (+1.18)
Jacques Courmontagne (MoDem) 3.57 (-3.29)
Monique Nicolas (LCR) 3.22 (+1.22)
André-Christian Darriet (PCF) 2.31 (+0.59)
Lydie Croizier (FN) 2.30 (-0.46)
Sébastien Jacques (DVD) 0.07 (new)

Parliamentary Left (PS, PCF) 46.08
Right (UMP, CPNT, DVD) 44.8

The race will be tight, and very tough it seems for Foulon. Adding the LCR’s 3% in its entirety to Deluga/PCF, he has 49.3% (be careful doing that. Trot voters are unreliable in runoffs). Adding the FN’s 2.3% to Foulon/CPNT he has 47.1%. Once again, the MoDem’s weak but important 3.57% will likely decide the runoff. I’ll either look like a total fool and hack or a great predictor in a few hours, but I’m going to predict a narrow UMP victory. After all, I did very well predicting the last two by-elections (Rhone-11 and Eure-et-Loir-1), so jamais deux sans trois I hope!

Here is a map of 2007. The Gironde prefecture is a total joke, and has only posted the generic percentages without communal data. If only everybody was like the Rhone prefecture…