France 2012: Official Results Thread

[tpfkaw]

Why does France always have such high turnout? Is it part of the whole "liberty, equality, fraternity" national psyche thing?

80% is high...but not terribly higher than most countries in Europe , no?

Italy typically has over 80% turnout. 

[tpfkaw]

Who is this good news for?  Hollande tops the poll, but (including Bayrou) the right has a majority.

[tpfkaw]

So it looks like Le Pen lost votes in conservative areas and gained in leftist areas?  Makes sense.

[tpfkaw]

Women are more likely to want to stick with the status quo, men are more likely to want to change it.  In most Western countries the "anti-status quo" parties are the rightist ones, but in France and to a lesser extent the UK they're the leftist ones.

[tpfkaw]

I suspect that some of those foreign countries might have fiddled with the votes sent in from them (the result for Melenchon in Cuba is particularly suspicious).

[tpfkaw]

We may also have to envision what sort of person a French expatriate in Cuba might be.

Fair enough, although Sarkozy's results in Libya and Armenia, and Melenchon's result in (once again Sandinista-ruled) Nicaragua also seem a little "fixed."

[tpfkaw]

We may also have to envision what sort of person a French expatriate in Cuba might be.

Fair enough, although Sarkozy's results in Libya and Armenia, and Melenchon's result in (once again Sandinista-ruled) Nicaragua also seem a little "fixed."

I didn't know Daniel Ortega is supervising French presidential election abroad.

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.  Expats in Latin America tend to be wealthy businesspeople, so a large vote for the far-left would not at all be characteristic.