France 2012: Official Results Thread

[ag]

Hollande 28.4
Sarkozy 25.5
Le Pen 20
Melenchon 11.7
Bayrou 8.5

[ag]

antenne 2

Cute. Back in the 80s.  .

Sorry, I am a clueless foreigner - only remember of France's existence at election time ) And tells you how old I am )  That was the first thing I thought of googling and something came up )

[ag]

Again, think about what type of French citizen lives in Cuba or Nicaragua, neither of which is friendly towards rich Western businesspeople, and that any French citizen living there would be doing so of their own accord.

Actually, I am not sure of Nicaragua (don't have any info), but Cuba is, actually, pretty friendly for a certain kind of a European businessman. And, yes, quite a few Europeans (almost definitely French as well) do business there - with the state, much of the time, of course. Money doesn't smell, does it?

[ag]

Uh... that sounds odd. (It's not as if they don't recognize the rest of Israel's post-48 boundaries either, is it?) Though it does explain things here.

The corpus separatum thing is the standard Western approach to the legal status of Jerusalem. There is nothing strange or new about it: it has always been the position not only of the French, but of the others as well. The Brits, for instance, do the same. This is what the website of their consulate in Jerusalem says:

"Although we accept de facto Israeli control of West Jerusalem, we consider East Jerusalem to be occupied territory. It is crucial that the parties involved come to an agreement whereby Jerusalem can be a shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian States."

The idea, of course, is, that Israeli control of West Jerusalem will be recognized de jure (not merely de facto) only after the final settlement is achieved. Until then, for the diplomatic purposes, Jerusalem remains, I guess, the last remnant of the Mandate Palestine

[ag]

Uh... that sounds odd. (It's not as if they don't recognize the rest of Israel's post-48 boundaries either, is it?) Though it does explain things here.

Yes, they are not very consistant about this, one of the polls was in Beer Sheva and is included in Israel despite being part of Palestine under that plan.

They ARE very consistent: it's such a long-standing policy, there's been time to work it out to the minute detail. Israeli post-1948 (pre-1967) borders are, in general, recognized, with one exception: Israeli control of any part of the City of Jerusalem will only be recognized de jure upon the final settlement. The French are not alone here: this is the general approach of most of the world. This is why there are so few embassies in Jerusalem - almost nobody recognizes any part of Jerusalem as legally Israeli. This position is made very clearly, for instance, on the website of the British consulate in Jerusalem.

[ag]

It may be long standing but I don't see how it is consistent if they are going to recognize other parts of pre-67 areas as part of Israel and not "west Jerusalem". And it isn't clear to me what "Jerusalem" means. Is it the original UN corpus separatum? The areas currently defined by Israel as Jerusalem? the areas the British mandate defined as jerusalem?

It is consistent with the nearly universally accepted international view of the issue, as reaffirmed in 1980 by the UN Security Council resolution 478.  The corpus separatum refers to Jerusalem, as per the UN Security Council Resolution 181 (II): this is very clearly stated, without any ambiguity, and is not a peculiarly French position at all. The rest of the Israeli post-1949 border is recognized.