France 2012: Official Results Thread

[Bacon King]

Somewhere early in this thread someone mentioned that Joly won a tiny village (Trémargat) in inland Cote d'Armor - she did so with 29%, with Mélenchon second on 27%. And the next village to the north (Peumerit-Quintin), she tied Hollande and Le Pen with 20 votes each out of 102, with Mélenchon on 19. What the hell is that?

Hippies.

[Bacon King]

Weird results explained!

Libya: most French expats that have already returned to Libya are in the oil industry (Total), "private security" business - i.e., mercenaries hired by the oil companies to protect their property (Gallice Security), and French Navy personnel sent to advise the new Libyan military. These all sound like quite the conservative types. There's probably also a bit of extra support for Sarkozy because of the proactive role he played in Ghaddafi's overthrow.

Armenia: Sarkozy has made a big deal on the campaign trail about repassing his Armenian Genocide bill that the French courts overturned; probably has a lot to do with it.

Cuba: The expats who aren't good communists get kicked out, of course. But more seriously, there's probably a huge self-selection bias among those who chose to emigrate to a dramatically leftist country rather than somewhere else in the region. Same probably applies to Nicaragua.

South Sudan: Hell if I know. Total has an oil concession here that they've barely started exploring, so it's probably the oiler + private security combo of Libya without any other expat community or esteem for overthrowing Ghaddaffi.

It'd be trivially easy for a foreign government to commit absentee voter fraud; if they have the names and addresses of French expats they simply send requests for absentee ballots, intercept them at the post office, and fill them out themselves.

Not true; French election law requires that postal absentee voters place a copy of their identification card in the ballot envelope, so it'd be pretty much  impossible for some foreign government to attempt this. The international polling stations have very strict security as well, and don't even allow non-French citizens to enter the premises. Not to mention the fact, of course, that it'd be quite ridiculously stupid for a nation's government to risk a huge international incident just to cast a few hundred fraudulent ballots for another country's election.

[Bacon King]

Here's a pretty cool map from Wikipedia, showing winner by commune:

[Bacon King]

South Sudan: Hell if I know. Total has an oil concession here that they've barely started exploring, so it's probably the oiler + private security combo of Libya without any other expat community or esteem for overthrowing Ghaddaffi.

Okay, figured this out. Le Pen won, yes: with 4 votes out of the 14 cast. So it's really just a statistical anomaly more than anything.

[Bacon King]

What is Haute-Savoie like, and why is Sarko breaking 60% there?

[Bacon King]

New best Sarko department: Haut-Rhin, with 63.3%. Border regions sure do hate them a socialist.

[Bacon King]

Mélenchon announced a total independence for Législatives, Front de Gauche will present candidates everywhere.

I somehow doubt than Pierre Laurent and PCF leadership will accept all Mélenchon orders.
That's a department, not a province, BK.

First off, you're quick! I edited out my mistake probably ten seconds after I posted it

Second, Front de Gauche's parties finalized back in 2011 their agreement for contesting the 2012 legislative elections. ~80% of their candidates will be from the PCF, ~20% from the PdG, though they'll contest a handful of constituencies with minor party members and FdG-affiliated leftist independents. Also, IIRC the agreement gave PCF a disproportionate amount of "winnable" constituencies, so FdG MP's after the election will probably be like 90-95% PCF anyway. I doubt Pierre Laurent will really be objecting to anything; FdG unity certainly helps PCF more than it hurts.