French Legislative Elections 2012: Hashemite's Guide and Predictions

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Since I am apparently good at these kinds of things, and since there seems to be at least passing and superficial interest in this, I decided to waste my free time (and perhaps my long weekend) by putting together a quick profile of every constituency ahead of the legislative elections.
 
I don’t know every other thing about every other politician and local official from Trifouillis-les-Oies, but I do know a superficial amount of stuff about most places and more stuff than a sane person needs to know about other places. And I also think that I know quite a bit about voting patterns in general, at least I probably know more about that than the overpaid journalists. However, these aren’t constituency profiles. If you’re really curious about why a certain constituency votes a certain way, PM me, but I feel like it is better to keep these things short and focused on the actual elections.
 
Basically, the point is to provide a brief overview of the candidates (to be updated as the official list comes out) and my impressions about the race. I’ll go in my traditional geographic order of things, but I can certainly detail certain departments whenever somebody asks.
 
A key of sorts:
* - indicates a constituency which has been modified by the redistricting
^ - retiring incumbent
+ - new seat
In brackets, the name/major city/region of the constituency followed by the incumbent’s party
 
Ratings on the 100% bullsh**t, 0% scientific and rarely accurate (Antonio, how’d I do on my stupid senatorial predictions last year again? Probably awfully) Hashpipe Super-Duper Prediction model:
 
These overall ratings are based on a general left/centre/right-majority/FN axis, rather than partisan labels.
 
-Safe: The chances of another political family winning the seat are nil or extremely low.
-Favoured: The chances of another political family winning the seat are not nil but fairly unlikely
-Lean: Not quite a perfect tossup, one political family has a little edge over another though it is not unfathomable to see the other side winning.
-Tosssup with edge: A tossup race, meaning that two or more political families have a serious chance at winning. However, one family has a marginally better chance of winning in the end and/or has momentum and local dynamics favouring it.
-Pure tossup: The race is too close to call between all sides involved, and there is not even a teeny tiny marginal edge to one family.
 
Finistère
2007: 5 PS, 3 UMP

1st (Quimper, PS) The PS’s Jean-Jacques Urvoas is running for a second term. He is a fairly well-known and popular incumbent in a constituency which actually elected a right-winger in 1997, but which is a solidly left-wing seat now. Hollande took 59% of the vote, and Quimper gave Hollande a higher percentage of the vote than even Brest. The only interesting thing here might come for EELV, which won 10% in 2007 and is fairly well organized in Quimper at a local level. The UMP candidate is a local councillor in Quimper. Next.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Brest-ville, PS)* An extremely solid PS seat based around the eternal bastion of Finistèrien socialism, Brest, gains a very left-wing canton (Bellevue) of Brest from the 3rd. PS incumbent Patricia Adam is running again, and she will win handily. The UMP, which in 2008 lost its last remaining electoral base (Brest-centre) has conceded the race, by supporting some PCD candidate, which is not to the likings of a longtime leader of the local right who is also running. There is a chance that the PS could win by the first round, but it will probably be settled by a landslide in the runoff. Adam won 55% in 2007, Hollande won 62.6%.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Brest-rural, UMP)* This contest will probably one of the top marginal contests. The constituency is politically divided between rural areas of Léon which are traditionally conservative, and some working-class parts of Brest (Recouvrance, Saint-Pierre) which are long-time PS strongholds. The PS narrowly won this seat in 1997 (in part due to the right’s division) with François Cuillandre, who became mayor of Brest in 2001, but Cuillandre was defeated in 2002 and again in 2007 by the UMP’s Marguerite Lamour who won a second term with 52.4% in 2007 (the constituency, iirc, voted for Royal). This year, Hollande won no less than 55.9% of the vote.
 
It is definitely winnable for the left, with one little problem: the constituency was given to the Greenies (their candidate is Magali Deval, a local councillor in Quimper) by the PS as part of the deal. This is not Green-country, and Deval is unpopular with the PS because she was apparently a jerk to them in the 2011 cantonals. There is a dissident DVG candidacy by the mayor of Plabennec, who would benefit from the support of some local PS leaders if he ran. One of the main things to look at in the first round would be this left-wing primary, but my hunch is that whichever one of the two candidates comes out on top, the UMP will be hard pressed to hold this seat in the runoff save some particularly bad blood between the two lefties or if there is a general toxicity with the Greenies.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)
 
4th (Morlaix/Trégor, PS) This seat, mostly dominated by the solidly and traditionally left-wing Trégor rouge, has been held since 1997 by the new cabinet minister Marylise Lebranchu (PS) who has always been one of this department’s most well-known and visible local PS deputies (notably due to her proximity to Aubry). She won handily in 2007, with 54.4% of the vote in the runoff. She will win reelection in a much pinker political climate this year, but for some reason, the UMP has given the impression that it fancies its chances in this Socialist stronghold. Indeed, the UMP’s candidate is rather high-profile: Agnès Le Brun, MEP and mayor of Morlaix (a PS stronghold which the UMP gained in 2008). The UMP might resist decently, but it stands no real chance. Hollande won 60.7% of the vote.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
5th (Pays Léonard/Brest-est, UMP) The sitting member for the most conservative constituency in the Finistère is Jacques Le Guen, a villepiniste member of the UMP which seems to be on particularly bad terms with Sarkozy and co since 2010. This constituency takes in the most conservative parts of the old clerical-Catholic backwater which was the Léon, but has a growing Socialist base in its southern appendage, which takes in solidly left-leaning Guipavas and Landerneau. Sarkozy won the constituency in 2007 (his only one in the 29) while Le Guen won reelection with 54.8%, after having won by the first round in 2002. The PS had won 45.7% in 1997, but Hollande enjoyed a particularly big swing in his favour in the Léon this year and won no less than 55.4% of the votes in this constituency. This will be a very close race, and it will likely decide whether the left scores a clean sweep of the department. The PS is running the same candidate as in 2007, a local councillor.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)
 
6th (Châteulin/Crozon/Monts-d’Arée, UMP^) André Siegfried had described the bulk of the regions covered in this constituency, save for the rock-ribbed socialist/communist Monts-d’Arée (Carhaix and Huelgoat), as some bastard region with no real political identity. What would he say of a constituency where the retiring UMP incumbent won his first election in 2002 with a 166-vote majority and a second term in 2007 with a 230-vote majority? At any rate, the constituency was far less indecisive in May 2012 – Hollande won 59.3%. Likely reading the writing on the wall, the UMP incumbent bowed out, leaving the UMP with the mayor of Plougastel-Daoulas (itself increasingly left-wing) as its candidate. On the left, the PS candidate who lost in 2007 is running again, but he faces potentially tough competition on the left from the left-regionalist mayor/general councillor of Carhaix, Christian Troadec, who had won 12.4% in 2007 but could do much better in 2012 benefiting from his strong local implantation in Carhaix. The FG could also be a presence in this constituency, which includes the old PCF stronghold of Le Huelgoat where Mélenchon did very well. In the end, the UMP has little chance of retaining this seat.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: left favoured (GAIN)
 
7th (Pays Bigouden/Douarnenez, PS) The PS gained this seat, which it had won in 1997 but lost in 2002, in 2007. That year, Annick Le Loch won 51% of the vote against the incumbent UMP deputy. This year, Hollande took nearly 59% of the vote in a constituency which is increasingly left-wing. The PS incumbent will easily retain her seat, but the right has an interesting little battle brewing between the AC (ex-MoDem) general councillor for Plogastel-Saint-Germain, Michel Cavenet, and the UMP general councillor for Pont-Croix. Cavenet had run for the MoDem in 2007 and took 19.5%, votes which did not do too much – to say the least – to help the UMP incumbent.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
8th (Concarneau/Quimperlé, PS) Including the old stronghold of Brittany’s unique communisme sardinier, this seat has been a fairly solid PS stronghold since Louis Le Pensec won the seat in 1973, holding it until 2002 when Gilbert Le Bris, then PS mayor of Concarneau, held the seat in a narrow contest. In 2007, Le Bris was handily reelected, ahead by the first round and winning 53.5% in the runoff. Even though the right gained Concarneau when Le Bris retired in 2008, the region is solidly left-wing. Hollande won 59.8% of the vote in the constituency. The division of the right between two candidates – one UMP, one NC, both of low calibre – will not help the right’s chances in a seat which voted PS even in 1993.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

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Côtes-d’Armor
2007: 4 PS, 1 UMP
 
1st (Saint-Brieuc, PS^) This seat, which takes in Saint-Brieuc and adjacent cantons (including the former PCF working-class base of Ploufragan) has been held by the PS’ Danielle Bousquet since 1997. Bousquet, who won reelection with 57.7% in 2007, is retiring this year. Her successor will be Michel Lesage, the PS mayor/general councillor of Langueux. The only non-Socialist who could have made this race less boring is Bruno Joncour, the MoDem mayor of Saint-Brieuc who has a strong personal vote (iirc, he won reelection in 2008 by defeating Bousquet, after a fairly flukeish win in 2001). He isn’t running, so the UMP’s candidate – some local councillor in Saint-Brieuc, will be crushed in typical fashion in the second-safest leftie seat in the 22. Hollande won 61.4% of the vote on May 6.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Dinan, PS^) This is Charles Josselin’s old seat, who managed to hang on even in 1993. Since he retired in 2002, Jean Gaubert has been the seat’s holder. He narrowly defeated Michel Vaspart, the UMP mayor of Pleudihen and general councillor, in 2002 and beat Vaspart by a much larger margin in the 2007 runoff (54.7%). The right has some footholds in the constituency, Sarkozy even won the canton of Pléneuf-Val-André on May 6, but Flamby won 54.8% of the vote overall in the constituency that day. Gaubert is retiring, to be succeeded by the PS mayor of Plancoët, while Vaspart hopes that the third time is the charm. Despite the strong local base of the UMP duo (Vaspart’s suppléeant is CG for Pléneuf-Val-André), the left will win easily.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Loudéac/Lamballe, UMP) This is the only blue seat in the department, held by Marc Le Fur, the vice-president of the National Assembly, since 2002. Le Fur (UMP) was defeated by the PS’ Didier Chouat in 1997 but beat Chouat easily in 2002 (52.7%). In 2007, he did extremely well in the first round, taking 48%, but won reelection with a mediocre 52% in the second round against Loïc Cauret, the PS mayor of the leftie blue-collar city of Lamballe. Le Fur has some amount of personal appeal in this constituency, which went to Ségogo in 2007 and gave 55.7% to Hollande in 2012. Certainly he played a role in helping the right reconquer a number of cantons in the CG between 2004 and 2011, but it is doubtful whether Le Fur can survive what seems to be a little pink wavelet. In any case, the contest features a rematch between Cauret and Le Fur.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)
 
4th (Guingamp/Trégor-Cornouaille, PS^) This seat, which englobes the quasi-entirety of the Red Belt of central Brittany, is ridiculously left-wing. Hollande won 65.7% of the vote here, taking over 60% in every single canton in this constituency. The seat elected a right-winger in 1993, but prior to that and since then it has been solidly left-wing. The PCF has retained a significant presence – Mélenchon won 15.4% - and won the seat twice, in 1978 and most recently in 1997 with Félix Leyzour. In 2002, Leyzour retired and the PCF’s Gérard Lahellec won only 15.8% of the vote and placed fourth, behind eventual PS winner Marie-Renée Oget and two right-wingers. Oget won 55.8% of the vote in the runoff, and in 2007 she took 63% in the runoff. Lahellec won 12.5% and third place in the first round. This is a solid leftie seat, and hell will freeze over before the right wins it in this climate.
 
However, the retirement of Oget and the PS-EELV deal has opened a nice little fraternal war on the left. This is a constituency conceded by Solférino to the Greenies, who finally nominated a local guy (Michel Balbot) rather than one Guy Hascoët (former Green deputy for the Nord and cabinet minister under Jospin, who has just rediscovered his native region). However, as always, Solférino’s deal with the Greenies didn’t go down well with the local PS. In dissidence, local Socialists are backing the PS mayor of Guingamp, Annie Le Houérou. On the other hand, given the FG’s momentum keeping up for now and Lahellec – who is running for a third shot – still holding a pretty strong base, it would also be foolish to count out the FG. We thus have a nice leftie sh**tfest, with a Greenie who is endorsed by Solférino, a dissident locally implanted Socialist with local PS endorsements, and a Commie who has a solid base. What happens in this case is anyone’s guess, but there is a nice chance that the right will be out by the first round or that the numbers could give a triangulaire. I think whichever one of Balbot, Le Houérou or Lahellec imposes him-herself as the leftie contender will win easily. But I can’t say which one of those three it will be (but my gut is pessimistic about EELV’s real chances).
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left (EELV/DVG/FG-PCF tossup)
 
5th (Lannion/Côte de granit rose/Trégor, PS) This is a solidly left-wing constituency, held by the PS since 1997. In 2007, Corinne Erhel had no trouble in succeeding Alain Gouriou. She won with a big 56.1% in the runoff, and in May Hollande took 59.3%. The UMP has some dwindling strength in coastal resort-type places like Perros-Guirec or Étables-sur-Mer (Sarko won the canton narrowly), but the main city – Lannion – is a PS stronghold (69% for Hollande in the canton) and other coastal cantons such as Plouha, Paimpol or Tréguier are fairly left-leaning nowadays. The right has conceded, the UMP putting up its departmental boss. It appears as if the centrist-Radical mayor of Paimpol, Jean-Yves de Chaisemartin, who had run in 2007 for the MoDem will not be running this year. He would probably have been a more high calibre guy than the UMP’s sacrificial lamb.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

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Morbihan
2007: 5 UMP, 1 PS
 
1st (Vannes/Golfe du Morbihan, UMP-RS)* There is a big chance that the guy who holds this seat voted for Hollande. His name is François Goulard, and he is one of the most anti-Sarkozyst of the UMP and a prominent villepiniste – one of the few who actually joined the Villepin clan party. Most recently, Goulard was successful in getting elected to a marginal canton to become president of the CG, but his senatorial candidacy last fall was a fail of epic proportions. Goulard has held this seat since 1997 and he is running for a third term. He won easily in 1997 (55%) and in 2002 (58%) but more narrowly in 2007 (53%). Goulard is running for a fourth term, but the right – just like the left – is divided. On the right, regional and local councillor Gilles Dufeigneux is running as the vaguely centre-right candidate under the AC label. On the left, the PS officially nominated Claude Jahier, a local councillor in Vannes. But there is a much more well-known and higher profile DVG PS dissident, Hervé Pellois, general councillor for Vannes-Est, a local mayor and the PS’ unsuccessful candidate in the last two elections.
 
Sarko still won 51.8% of the vote here. Vannes proper remains pretty right-wing, especially when compared to Lorient or other Breton cities, and the wealthy places/old people places/mini resorts lining the Golfe (beautiful place, but I digress) are also really right-wing (the canton of Sarzeau gave Sarko 59%). The loss of one canton (La-Roche-Bernard) might have made the constituency a tiny bit more leftie, but not by a whole lot. If this turns into a 1981 leftslide, then the PS might have a real shot. For now, I’d say it’s a long shot which is probably not on their target list.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean right
 
2nd (Port-Louis/Auray /Quiberon/Belle-Île, UMP) UMP incumbent Michel Grall is running for a second term. The former mayor of Carnac won a fairly close race in 2007, with 52.3% of the vote in the runoff after emerging as the best of three right-wing candidates (the DVD mayor of Quiberon and the MPF CG for Quiberon) in the first round. This is a traditionally right-leaning area, with Quiberon’s peninsula and small resort places/old people towns like Carnac or La Trinité-sur-Mer being very right-wing, but with Port-Louis, Belle-Île and Pluvigner a bit more left-inclined. Grall faces a dissident candidacy from the DVD CG for Auray (Philippe Le Ray), while the PS’ Nathalie Le Magueresse – running for a third time – faces no serious threat from the Greenies or the FG. The PCF mayor of Auray (which is a fairly right-wing place…), now senator, ran in the last three legislative elections and grabbed 10.3% in 2007. Sarko won 50.6% here, and this is a potential gain for the left, though I'm conflicted about how to classify it...
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge
 
3rd (Pontivy, UMP^) The UMP incumbent Gérard Lorgeoux is retiring after two terms. This used to be a fairly safe seat for the right, which easily held on back in 1997 and Lorgeoux won 56% in 2007. Nowadays, it is increasingly marginal. Lorgeoux won 53% in 2007, and Hollande won the constituency with 50.9%, doing especially well in Baud and Pontivy (whose political temperament is closer to that of the western Vannetais than the Vannetais gallo...). Lorgeoux is retiring this year, and the UMP candidate is the CG for Grand-Champ, Yves Bleunven. The PS candidate is the perennial candidate, Jean-Pierre Le Roch, the PS mayor of Pontivy, who has apparently run five times. This is an extremely vulnerable seat, made all the more shaky by the incumbent's retirement.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: pure tossup

4th (Ploërmel/Guer, UMP^)* This used to be reactionary heartland, whose past deputies including two monarchist Ducs de Rohan (whose castle is in Josselin, and whose latest politician was, of course, a senator until 2008) and which used to give over 70% to the right in the 60s. What is is today is a far cry from what it was back then. Sarko only won 50.4% here, and cantons like Questembert, Allaire, Mauron and even Ploërmel are becoming a bit left-leaning. The addition of the more right-wing canton of La-Roche-Bernard (53% for Sarko) from Goulard's turf was aimed at shoring things up for the right. Indeed, in 2007, the UMP incumbent in this seat since 1973, Loïc Bouvard, won reelection with a bare 50.4% after having won 57% in both 1997 and 2002. A lot of that was due to the local popularity of the PS candidate, Béatrice Le Marre, then the PS CG for Ploërmel and the mayor of that city since 2008. She did particularly well in Ploërmel, which is a bit more right-wing (51% for Sarko, she had won 52% in the 2007 runoff). Bouvard is retiring this year, and Le Marre is not running. We thus have a fairly cool contest shaping up. On the right, the UMP has endorsed none other than François Guéant, suppleant and CR, but above all son of the collabo. Lil Guéant has little political talent of his own (he got his ass handed to him in the 2008 cantonals), but has managed to get so far because of his last name. He isn't extremely popular with the old right-wingers, notably Jean-Luc Bléher, the mayor of Guer who is bitter at Lil Guéant since 2007. Bléher is running as a dissident, endorsed by the local NC but not by the national party. On the left, this constituency is included in the PS-EELV deal, so the PS conceded this seat to the Greenies who in turn conceded it to their sidekick, the local regionalist UDB, whose candidate Paul Molac has the support of the national PS. There is a dissident DVG candidacy from Charles-Edouard Fichet, a local mayor. The MoDem candidate, Michel Guégan, is also a mayor.

I'm at a loss as to what we can expect. Le Marre was an excellent candidate for the PS in 2007, and the left isn't as strong (in terms of candidates) this year, but the right is in a sh**tstorm and Lil Guéant doesn't exactly scream intelligence. I could guess this is vulnerable, and not be too wrong in saying that... but I'll err on the safe side of things.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: pure tossup

5th (Lorient, PS) The old working-class city of Lorient is the left's oldest and safest base in this historically right-wing country. Hollande won no less than 57.7% in this constituency, which also includes the old proletarian PCF stronghold of Lanester (66% Hollande), the more right-wing coastal canton of Ploemeur and Groix. Current defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian held this seat until 2004. The PS incumbent died in office and her successor, Gwendal Rouillard, is running for reelection. In 2007, the PS won easily with 55.3% in the runoff. Rouillard will have no trouble winning reelection. The UMP candidate is Brigitte Mélin, a local official in the wealthy coastal suburb of Lorient of Larmor-Plage.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

6th (Hennebont/Plouay, UMP) This is a weird seat, kind of. Royal won it in 2007, and Hollande won no less than 56.4% here on May 6, yet it reelected the UMP incumbent, Jacques Le Nay, with a solid 54.7% in 2007. Le Nay has been the incumbent here since 1993, when he gained this open PS-held seat. This seat covers the working-class PCF stronghold of Hennebont, the similarly proletarian but PS-leaning Inzinzac-Lochrist and the 'rural' areas of the western Vannetais which form, politically, an extension of the Red Belt's left-wing temperament. Le Nay, has a solid personal vote which is concentrated around his Plouay stronghold, the town he's been mayor of since 1989. In 1997, he narrowly held on with 50.6% against the PS mayor of Inzinzac, but in 2002 he won reelection by the first round and in 2007 he won 49% by the first round (which makes his 54.7% victory a bit less impressive...). He notably won 70% of the vote in Plouay and 64% in the canton of Plouay (but also won the rural cantons and Pont-Scorff, losing only in Hennebont). The PS has a new candidate this year, Philippe Noguès, who is also from Inzinzac. He will need, first, to defeat some fairly solid left-wing competitors: Gérard Perron, the PCF mayor of Hennebont who won 9.8% in 2007 and is solidly implanted in his home commune; and Christian Derrien, the Troadec ally who is CG for Gourin since 2011 (and mayor of Langonnet). Le Nay is running for reelection, after having been defeated in the shocking 2011 senatorial elections (though he still was the best right-wing candidate in that epic fail election).

This will certainly be a tough race. Le Nay is probably the only UMP candidate who stands a fighting chance, and he probably commands a favourite-son vote in Plouay (he won reelection in 2008 with over 64%). But this seat is structurally left-wing, and Le Nay seems to be weakening as an incumbent. I doubt he could win reelection in a 1997 climate at this point.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)

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Ille-et-Vilaine
2007: 4 PS (incl. 1 DVG), 2 UMP, 1 MoDem (now AC)

1st (Rennes-sud, PS-DVG)* This seat has lost the canton of Rennes sud-ouest and gained the canton of Bruz, which does not change the state of things much. This is a solidly left-wing seat, held by the PS even in the 1993 epic fail. Hollande won 65% of the vote here, taking 74% in Rennes-Le Blosne and 69% in Rennes-centre sud (respectively a cite populaire canton and a bobo canton). Under different boundaries, the PS incumbent for this area since 1981, Jean-Michel Boucheron, won 65.5% of the vote in the runoff. This year, Boucheron tried to run in the new 8th constituency but got defeated in the primary by another PS incumbent, so backtracked into his old seat. The problem is that the PS had already endorsed Marie-Anne Chapdelaine, a local councillor. Boucheron is thus running for reelection as a dissident. The Greens, who are strong in centre sud, should make a presence, they already won 5.2% in 2007. Which one of the incumbent dissident or the official solferiniste will win is something I'm not too sure about, given that both candidates seem strong (Chapdelaine's suppleant is the PS CG for Bruz). At any rate, it is still a safe left-wing seat. The UMP has endorsed the MoDem/AC mayor of Chantepie (a fairly bland suburb which is very leftie), Grégoire Le Blond, who won 11.4% of the vote in 2007 and won election in leftie Chantepie in 2008 thanks to the division of the right. The MoDem itself seems to be in the crapper throughout the department, with a huge internal civil war going on.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

2nd (Elbridge Gerry Memorial Constituency/Rennes-est/Cesson/Liffré, PS^)* The old second has been turned around sideways by Marleix, losing the cantons of Combourg, Saint-Aubin-d'Aubigné, Tinteniac, Rennes-centre and Rennes-nord gaining instead Cesson, Liffré and Rennes-est. The result is something which is a dictionary definition of a gerrymander, perhaps aimed at shoring up the two right-wing constituencies in the east of the department. Hollande won 59.7% of the vote here, taking over 60% in Rennes and Liffré. This is largely a constituency of Rennes' middle-class/well-off suburbs; Cesson, Betton and Saint-Grégoire being quite affluent suburbs. Hédé, the ugly northern appendage of this monstrosity, is part of a belt in central north-western Ille-et-Vilaine (along with Tinteniac and Saint-Aubin-d'Aubigne) which has an older leftie republican/RadSoc tradition. In the vastly different boundaries in 2007, the PS won 56% in the runoff. The PS candidate here is new, Nathalie Apperé, a local councillor in Rennes. The UMP has a random sacrificial lamb. The PS will win very easily here.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

3rd (a little bit of everything, PS^)* This constituency has also changed a lot, losing Mordelles and Rennes-centre ouest, gaining Tinteniac and Combourg. This has shifted the PS incumbent, Marcel Rogemont, into the 8th constituency. In its new shape, Hollande took 56.9% on May 6. Save for the canton of Saint-Méen-le-Grand (which includes a commune with a great name...) which is more rural (and still conservative) and the canton of Combourg, more distant from Rennes; this is a largely suburban area, not as affluent as the parts included in the 2nd, but still not too shabby (Pacé, one of the main cities here, is fairly affluent and used to be more right-leaning). The left is, therefore, dominant. The PS candidate is François André, CG for Rennes nord-ouest (and his suppleant is the PS CG for Combourg). The UMP candidate might have had a chance in a way better year, but Philippe Rouault, who was the deputy between 2002 and 2007, has been on the way out since his 2007 defeat. No contest again, PS wins. BTW, the DLR candidate has an unfortunate name, for Anglos: Gaylord Odic (though a last name with 'Urdic' would have been better)
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

4th (Redon, PS)* This constituency has lost the canton of Bruz. Hollande won 55.8% in this constituency whose largest city is Redon, but whose other cantons (notably Guichen) are under the growing influence of Rennes and are a kind of weird hybrid between dying rural culture and middle-class suburbanites. The "suburban" cantons are not very affluent or highly educated as the older 'burbs, being more lower middle-class exurban though not of a exurban-FN voting type. This has, of course, helped the left, which gained Alain Madelin's old seat in 2007 (which had become marginal in 2002) with Jean-René Marsac (PS) winning 52.9% in the runoff. Redon, Guichen and Le-Sel are the left's strongest cantons. Marsac is running for reelection, while the UMP is supporting a local mayor (and former CG for the canton of Redon) Dominique Julaud (AC). This seat is trending hard left, and Marsac will have no trouble winning reelection.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

5th (Vitré, UMP^)* Besides 1968-1973, this seat has been the personal stronghold of the centre-right Méhaignerie family. Pierre Méhaignerie, one of the UMP's most prominent ex-CDS centrists, is retiring after having been in office since 1973. Méhaignerie had won reelection by the first round in 2007, with 52.7%. This seat has becoming more right-wing after Marleix amputated it of Rennes-est and Cesson, two cantons which had the disadvantage of voting incorrectly. All in all, the seat remains centered around Vitré and includes most of the extremely conservative eastern confines of Ille-et-Vilaine, which is old reactionary/chouan/Catho country. This was Sarko's best constituency in Brittany, taking it with 53.4% (which is still a pathetic result). The cantons of Chateaugiron and Janzé have become more leftie as they become part of Rennes' suburban belt. Vitré and the rural cantons (Retiers, La Guerche, Argentre-du-Plessis) remain very conservative. The UMP's candidate is Isabelle Le Callenec, an aide to Méhaignerie. She faces a MoDem and Radical candidate. It is pretty unlikely she will win by the first round, but she remains the favourite in the runoff against PS candidate Anne-Laure Loray.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

6th (Fougères, AC)* This constituency, which has lost Liffré but gained Saint-Aubin-d'Aubigné and Pleine-Fougères, made headlines in 2007 when MoDem candidate Thierry Benoit, fresh from beating a divided left in the first round, defeated the UMP incumbent Marie-Thérèse Boisseau (in office since 1993) with 55.1% of the vote, thanks in good part to left-wing voters. A scenario not quite unlike the 1993 one, when Boisseau (UDF) had toppled long-time Gaullist deputy Michel Cointat. Benoit has proven to be a fairly right-wing deputy, having left the MoDem to align with the AC which is a bit less hostile to the outgoing majority. This year, he is the uncontested candidate of the right, endorsed by the UMP. However, Hollande won 50.9% in this constituency, which used to be very conservative, but which is now increasingly marginal. The left, however, sees its chances of an historic conquest in this region of the department complicated by division. As in 2002 and 2007, the PS has no candidate and is backing EELV's Agathe Remoué. She faces a tough challenge from Louis Feuvrier, the centre-left/DVG mayor of the blue-collar city of Fougères who had been the left's candidate in 1993. Feuvrier benefits from a strong local base which EELV does not really have, and I would edge towards pinning him as the top left-wing candidate. The runoff will be very closely fought, but Benoit might have a tiny edge.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge

7th (Saint-Malo/Côte d'Émeraude, DVD^)* This seat has lost the canton of Pleine-Fougères. The incumbent deputy and mayor of Saint-Malo, René Couanau (who quit the UMP last year) is retiring after holding this fairly conservative constituency since 1988. In 2007, he won the runoff very easily, with 57% of the vote (but he had won by the first round in 2002). He has been hit by voter fatigue in recent years, so he is handing his hat over to Gilles Lurton, his right-hand man and the newly-elected CG for Saint-Malo Sud (and his suppleant is CG for Dol-de-Bretagne). He faces a fraternal first round battle with the UMP's official candidate, Nicolas Belloir, who appears much weaker than Lurton. To complicate things a bit further, there is a centrist candidacy from Jean-Francis Richeux (AC), CG for Châteauneuf-d'Ille-et-Vilaine and 2007 MoDem candidate (winning 15.1%).
Sarko won 50.4% in this constituency, losing the city of Saint-Malo narrowly but holding up in the more right-leaning cantons of Dinard and Cancale. If the left has a shot (it kind of does), it is definitely not with its perennial epic fail of a candidate since 1993, Isabelle Thomas, an old student leader and an untalented party hack. The left stands a much better chance if Michel Penhoët, the PRG mayor of Saint-Lunaire and CG for Dinard since 2008, is able to place ahead of Thomas in the first round. Penhoët was able to win the wealthy right-wing canton of Dinard back in 2008 (due to right-wing divisions, in part) and is a much stronger candidate than Thomas, whose mission to become an MEP failed in 2009.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge

8th (Rennes-ouest/Mordelles)+: This is a new constituency, made up of the cantons of Mordelles, Rennes-sud-ouest (including Saint-Jacques-de-la-Lande), Rennes-centre-ouest, Rennes-centre and Rennes-nord. The incumbent in the third constituency (Marcel Rogemont) has found his canton moved to this constituency, so he is running for reelection in this constituency, after having defeated Boucheron in a primary. The new seat is very left-wing, including parts of Rennes and Mordelles which is a middle-class suburban area (and is also leftie). Hollande won 63.4% here. The UMP sacrificial lamb is Bruno Chavanat, the leader of the futile right-wing opposition in Rennes. Rogemont will win very easily in any case.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

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Loire-Atlantique
2007: 5 PS, 3 UMP, 1 Green, 1 NC

1st (Nantes-Orvault, EELV) In 2007, benefiting a lot from the absence of a PS candidate, François de Rugy (Green) defeated UMP incumbent Jean-Pierre Le Ridant with 52% of the runoff. This seat's composition is unchanged, but it is increasingly unwinnable for the right. Hollande won 56.7% here, including 56% in the affluent middle-class suburb of Orvault and 68% in the canton of Nantes-7 (a low-income neighborhood). de Rugy, who failed to topple the incumbent centre-right mayor of Orvault in 2008, is running for reelection and will win handily. The UMP sacrificial lamb is François Pinte, the departmental leader and unsuccessful candidate in the second constituency in 2002 and 2007.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

2nd (Nantes-centre et sud, PS) The other nantais constituency is also looking increasingly impregnable for the right, which had won it in 1988. PS incumbent Marie-Françoise Clergeau won reelection by a big margin in 2007, 54.8%, larger than her original margin in 1997. Hollande took 60% of the vote, propelled by bobos in the downtown core and more downtrodden low-income or lower middle-class neighborhoods. The right does have a solid base in the old bourgeois 4th canton, but that's it. Clergeau will glide to reelection easily, facing token opposition from the UMP's candidate, Laurence Garnier, a local councillor. She could win by the first round, but that will likely be denied by a solid result by EELV and the FG.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

3rd (Saint-Herblain, PS) Prime Minister Ayrault's seat is one of the safest seats for the PS in the entire country. In 2007, he won 49.8% in the first round and 66.2% in the runoff. In 2002, he won reelection by the first round. And on May 6, Hollande took 65.2%. This constituency combines poor social housing tracts and low-income parts of Nantes with the old industrial conglomeration on the banks of the Loire, in this case the cities of Indre and Saint-Herblain. This isn't really proletarian country at this point, more lower-income employees and the like. The UMP has given up and endorsed a no-name (the wife of the former deputy for the 1st constituency). Ayrault will win over 50% of the votes by the first round, and provided abstention is low enough, will be elected outright on June 10.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

4th (Rezé, PS) This is another extremely solid leftie seat, represented by Dominique Raimbourg (PS) since 2008. Raimbourg won 44.4% in the first round and 64.5% in the runoff. Hollande took 64.5% too in this constituency, which is centered around the old working-class suburb of Rezé but also includes the more affluent St-Sebastien-sur-Loire and a part of Nantes. Again, there's no contest here. Raimbourg has a good chance of winning by the first round as well.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

5th (Carquefou/La-Chapelle-sur-Erdre, PS)* The election of a PS deputy, Michel Ménard, here in 2007 was a bit of an historic feat in a conservative constituency. Even in 1997, the right had won 53% in the runoff. But this region is changing, the result of the leftization associated with the suburban growth in western Nantes. Carqefou and La-Chapelle-sur-Erdre, whose cantons include some professional, educated middle-class suburbs of Nantes, are increasingly leftie. The constituency has been restructured and made more left-wing: it loses Ancenis, Varade, Riaillé and Saint-Mars-la-Jaille, but gains Nort-sur-Erdre. Hollande won 56.3% here, the inclusion of Nantes-8 in this constituency (63.6%) proving quite helpful. Ménard will win easily, but the right doesn't have a bad candidate: Maurice Perrion, AC CG for Ligné and 2007 MoDem candidate (14.2%).
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

6th (Chateaubriant/Ancenis, NC)* This constituency loses Nort-sur-Erdre but expands to gobble up Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon, Ancenis, Varade, Riaillé and Saint-Mars-la-Jaille. Historically, this region - especially around Chateaubriant - has been a very conservative region. Since 1993, Michel Hunault (RPR, then UMP and now NC) has been reelected without excessive trouble, by the first round in 2002 but with a fairly "little" 53.9% in 2007. Before that, his father, Xavier Hunault had represented the area since 1962. However, Hollande having won 52.4% in the constituency (performing best in Blain and Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon, which have been leftie for quite some time, and under the influence of Nantes; but also winning in Ancenis, Chateaubriant and Hunault's home base of Derval) will give Hunault his toughest run yet. The PS candidate, Yves Daniel, is the mayor of Mouais and the CG for Derval (which Hunault represented for a while in the CG). But Hunault is a strong local candidate and he seems to have a strong personal vote. In 2004, his dissident centre-right list in the Euros won 26.7% in the constituency (a close second behind the PS, reducing the UMP to 5.5%) - against 6.3% for his list in the department. Hunault can probably perform better here than Sarko did, but it will certainly be a tough race.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge

7th (Guérande/La Baule/Pays de Brière, UMP)* This constituency has lost the left-leaning canton of Saint-Nicolas-de-Redon, shifting it to the right a bit and giving more weight to the core right-wing strongholds in this constituency which gave 51.5%. While the Brière region (the Saint-Nazaire backcountry, and a truly dreary place) is working-class and very left-wing with 63% for Hollande in the canton of Pontchateau and 58% in Saint-Gildas-des-Bois; the famed coastal resort towns of La Baule, Pornichet and Le Croisic (plus the city of Guérande, which is really nice) are quite conservative. This constituency elected a Socialist, René Leroux, in 1997 (a real surprise back then, after having been Olivier Guichard's home turf), but since 2002 it has been represented by the UMP mayor of Guérande, Christophe Priou, who won a second term with 57.9% in the runoff in 2007 (and 49.9% in the first round). His reelection will be a bit harder this year for Priou, who faces a local councillor, Hélène Chailler (PS). However, he remains favoured, given the redistricting's effects.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

8th (Saint-Nazaire/Montoire, PS) This very left-wing constituency (65.9% Hollande) is centered around the industrial working-class city of Saint-Nazaire (which isn't *as* proletarian as people think, but is still a fairly low-income and dreary city) and its very proletarian and uber-leftie hinterland along the Loire (Montoire-de-Bretagne, a PCF stronghold). The area around Savenay is a more middle-class area under Nantes' greater influence, but the constituency remains under the double-dominance of Montoire and Saint-Nazaire. Hollande won between 63% and 70% in Saint-Nazaire's three cantons and nearly 70% in Montoire. The PS incumbent Marie-Odile Bouillé, in office since 2007, won in 2007 with 64.3%. In 1997, the right didn't even make the runoff in the fraternal fight between then-PS incumbent Claude Evin and the MDC mayor of Saint-Nazaire, Joel-Guy Batteux. Bouillé will, shockingly, glide to reelection, but a strong FG performance in a place where Melenchon won 15.4% will prevent a first round reelection.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

9th (Pays de Retz/Pornic, UMP) The Pays de Retz used to be a right-wing stronghold until not too long ago, but Sarko only won 50.2% in this constituency and in 2007, the UMP mayor of Pornic Philippe Boënnec won only 53% in the runoff (a smaller result than in 1997). Indeed, though the coastal resort town of Pornic and places such as Machecoul remain quite right-wing, the area is attracting some less affluent middle-class suburbanites from Nantes. Hollande won 61% in the canton du Pellerin, part of which is part of Nantes' industrialized western suburbs; and 55% in Paimboeuf, which is a Saint-Nazaire suburb on the other side of the Loire. The PS mayor of Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu, Monique Rabin, is running for a third time and she is a strong candidate. The race will be pretty tough, and a lot hinges on whether or not Rabin can do better in her native canton (Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu, a more or less right-wing place) than in 2007. I would classify this as another tossup in which the UMP might be starting off with a tiny edge.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge

10th (Vertou/Clisson/Vignoble Nantais, UMP^) The Vignoble has usually been a conservative bastion, even in 2007 the UMP's Serge Poignant won 56.9% in the runoff. But, again, things are changing. Hollande won 51.4% in this constituency, the result of the leftization of the affluent middle-class suburb of Vertou and its surroundings. Clisson and the confines of the Vignoble remain more right-leaning, but not by all that much - Hollande won 49.6% in the canton of Clisson. The UMP incumbent Serge Poignant is retiring after four terms, leaving an open seat and an even tougher fight for the right. The PS candidate is a local mayor, Sophie Errante. The UMP is running the mayor of Vertou, Laurent Dejoie (his father, Luc Dejoie, was a RPR Senator and mayor of Vertou between 1971 and 1995). I'm conflicted about this race. Dejoie is a strong candidate and he could perform better in Vertou than Sarko, but at the same time the seat is becoming increasingly leftie. Call me a broken record or a wuss, but I'll err safe and save face by a pure tossup call.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: pure tossup

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Vendée
2007: 2 UMP, 1 NC, 1 DVD, 1 MPF

1st (La Roche-nord/Challans, NC^) In 1986, Pasqua came up with a fine gerrymander which divided the two overpopulated cantons of the old republican city of La Roche-sur-Yon and placed the northern canton in this constituency, which takes in rural cantons in the bocage and Challans. Hollande won 57% in La Roche-nord, but lost heavily in all other cantons including Challans (59.8% Sarko), the old home turf of the Baudry d'Asson family (I can't talk about this department and not mentioned them). Sarko won 53.5% in the constituency as a whole. The incumbent here since 1988 is Jean-Luc Préel (NC, ex-UDF) who won reelection in 2007 with 56.9%. In 2007, the aging incumbent faced a very tough first round challenge from Alain Leboeuf, the DVD mayor and CG of Rocheservière. Leboeuf won 27.9% in the first round, placing second, ahead of the PS, but finally backed out to prevent a fatal three-way runoff. This year, Leboeuf's second candidacy - which received the backing of the big boss of the department - the UMP (ex-MPF) president of the CG, Bruno Retailleau, compelled Préel  to retire from a race which would surely have been his last. The right enters this contest united behind Leboeuf, who has the UMP's support. The PS does not have a solid chance here and its candidate, Martine Chantecaille, a local councillor in La Roche, is not really a strong one.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

2nd (La Roche-sud/Talmont, UMP) This is the second constituency covering La Roche (the southern canton, grossly overpopulated, 57% Hollande), this one made right-leaning by the useful addition of the coastal canton of Talmont-Saint-Hilaire (and Moutiers-les-Mauxfaits which has a coastal strip) which is full of old wealthy retirees who vote for the right. Since 1997 this seat has been held by Dominique Caillaud (UMP) who was originally elected in 1997 as a UDF dissident backed by de Villiers, but since 2002 a bland UMPer. He won reelection in 2007 by a fairly tight margin, 54.8% in the runoff against PS candidate Sylviane Bulteau, who became CG for La Roche-sud back in 2008. Sarko won here with 52%, but of the two yonnais constituencies, this is the one where the PS has the biggest hopes. Sylviane Bulteau is running again, her third shot, but since 2008 she has a solid base as CG in La Roche-sud. On the right, Caillaud could be hurt by the fourth successive candidacy of local councillor Raoul Mestre (he may be related to a former deputy for this seat), who ran for the MoDem in 2007 (10.7%) but is running as a DVD this year. I expect Caillaud to win, by a very tight margin (51%) or so, but in case of a 1981-wave, Bulteau can probably win here.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

3rd (Les Sables/Côte de Lumière, UMP) This is a very solid right-wing seat, centered around the affluent coastal resort of Les Sables-d'Olonne and stretching up and down the Côte de Lumière of the Vendée to englobe most of the department's famous coastal resort communities, plus the two islands. Sarkozy won 60.2% of the vote here, and the right (usually the Gaullists, strong in Les Sables) has held this seat with huge majorities for ages. The UMP mayor of Les Sables, Louis Guédon, has held this seat since 1993. In 2002 and 2007, he won by the first round, taking 52.7% in 2007. The left is not risking much here by officially conceding the seat to the Greenies, in the person of Claudine Goichon, but there is a strong dissident DVG candidacy here led by Jacques Fraisse, the PS mayor of Saint-Hilaire-de-Riez who ran and lost in 1997 and 2002. But the right is divided as well. Guédon is an old man (like most of his constituents), so he faces a dissident candidacy from an ambitious youngie, the DVD (ex-MPF) mayor of Olonne-sur-Mer, Yannick Moreau, running alongside the ex-MPF CG for Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie. Guédon will probably win a fifth term, but Moreau could prove a strong candidate. The left? Can't win here, as the LibDem bar charts would tell us.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right (our first such seat thus far!)

4th (Montaigu/Mortagne/Haut-Bocage, MPF) This constituency used to be one of the most right-wing in the whole of France, with the right usually taking 70-80% of the vote here until not too long ago. But above that, it is also Philippe de Villiers' old seat, having held it between 1988 and 2005 (with a 94-97 break). He was succeeded in a 2005 by-election by Véronique Besse, who won over 70% in that by-election in the first round and won reelection in 2007 with 61% by the first round. Sarko only won 59.3% here, and this constituency isn't really the reactionary chouan bastion of yesteryears. Montaigu is tightening up as it becomes a bit more suburban (Nantes and Cholet). The MPF, finally, is dwindling into total irrelevance as all its big names leave the sinking ship and the party finds itself without a leader and a direction. But Besse, who is once again backed by the UMP, will win reelection easily, potentially by the first round. A Radical candidate could make stuff a bit more difficult, but the PS candidate (a regional councillor), Maï Haeffelin, will be crushed.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

5th (Fontenay-le-Comte/Plaine et marais, MPF) This constituency, which includes most of the old republican strongholds of the plaine and marais, is the most left-wing constituency in the department. Sarko won narrowly with 51.6% here, losing in Fontenay and most of the plaine/marais cantons but winning thanks to a huge win in the very conservative Chataigneraie (a bocage canton) and a closer win in Lucon. This was the only constituency in the department to ever elect a Socialist, in 1981 and 1988, but since 1993 it has been held by the right - until 2008 by Joël Sarlot (DVD, ex-UDF), a fairly useless drone who nonetheless managed impressive reelections in 2002 and 2007 - by the first round in both cases, with about 52%. In 2008, Sarlot's election was invalidated and he was replaced in a by-election by Dominique Souchet, a MPF general councillor. In 1997, Sarlot had won a narrow second term with 52% in the runoff against Jean-Claude Remaud, the ex-PS (now PRG) mayor of Fontenay-le-Comte until 2008.
We have a fun heavy three-way fight this year. Sarlot wants his old seat back, and in this he has the backing of the UMP. His suppleant is Valentin Josse, the DVD CG for La Chataingneraie. However, Souchet, despite not having the UMP's backing, is running for reelection. His suppleant is the former CG for Maillezais. On the left, the PS candidate is Hugues Fourage, the new mayor of Fontenay-le-Comte, running in duo with the PS CG for Chaille-les-Marais. This year, Remaud will not be running for a fifth successive failed candidacy. Most people appear to be betting either on Sarlot or Souchet (I would tend towards the former) but it would be a mistake to count the PS (who has some strong candidates) out in this marginal constituency. The PS certainly faces an uphill battle here, though.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right (or tossup with right edge)

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Maine-et-Loire
2007: 5 UMP, 1 PS, 1 CD

1st (Angers-centre/est/nord-est, UMP^) The city of Angers is split into four different constituencies, this one takes in the centre, est and nord-est cantons in addition to Tiercé and Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe. This has usually tended to be a more right-leaning constituency, the more leftist leanings of parts of Angers (though the canton of Angers-centre includes the city's most bourgeois, and thus conservative, parts) being more than compensated by the conservatism found in the more rural cantons of Tiercé and Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe. This year, Hollande narrowly won the constituency with 51.6%, taking 56% in Angers east and north-east (the east cantons includes the fairly working-class suburb of Saint-Barthélemy-d'Anjou, 56.5% for Hollande) and even doing quite well in suburbanizing Tiercé. The seat has been the preserve of the Narquin/Bachelot family since 1968 (Jean Narquin, Gaullist, from 68 to 88; and his daughter Roselyne Bachelot since then). Roro may be a moron, but her family is a household name in these parts. She won 54.7% in the runoff in 2007, and 58.3% in 2002. This year, she is retiring and the UMP's replacement is her suppleant (thus kinda-incumbent) Paul Jeanneteau. The PS, as in 2007, will be represented by Angers city councillor Luc Belot, who has worked the ground well since his 2007 defeat. A weird Cap21-DVG ticket led by a former Socialist and whose suppleant is the CG for Anger-est might register a good result in the first round. This is certainly one of the PS' top targets in this department and is quite winnable.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: pure tossup

2nd (Angers-Trélazé/Ponts-de-Cé, PS) The PS had conquered this seat in 2007, an historic first for the left in old ultra-conservative Anjou. This constituency includes the southern canton of Angers plus that of Trélazé, a very working-class suburb of Angers (slate quarries) which is the most left-wing canton in the Maine-et-Loire (the city was 68% Hollande). Hollande won 53.8% in this seat, boosted not only by Trélazé and Angers (Angers-sud was 59% for Hollande, that cantons includes a few cités) but also by some middle-class suburbs of Angers in the Ponts-de-Cé area on the banks of the river. The right won this seat in 1997, but in 2007, Marc Goua, the PS mayor of Trélazé, took 52.1% in the runoff against the UMP incumbent. Goua is safe, the UMP is not going after this seat aggressively by the looks of it (a PCD candidate endorsed by the UMP).
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

3rd (Saumur-nord/Baugeois), UMP) The Baugeois used to be the republican stronghold in royalist Anjou, but the old political divisions in this region have been erased quite considerably. While still retaining a different political character, the Baugeois region is basically right-wing now. Sarkozy won 53.4% in this constituency, though Hollande had the upper hand in two cantons which are in Angers'
suburban circle of influence. Rural cantons being quite right-wing, the right usually has the upper hand. Christian Martin (UDF) had a close call in 1997, winning with only 51.5%. He was succeeded in 2002 by Jean-Charles Taugourdeau (UMP, mayor of Beaufort-en-Vallée) who won over 62% in the 2002 runoff and won by the first round in 2007 with 52.4% of the vote... the Baugeois is no longer the republican stronghold of a hundred years ago! In that election, he had faced the then-PRG (ex-Green) mayor of Saumur Jean-Michel Marchand (who had won the 4th constituency in 1997, but lost in 2002) who took second with only 22.2%. Marchand is running again this time, but is in a much stronger position. Taugourdeau is running again, but there is an apparently very dangerous dissident candidacy by Frédéric Mortier, the DVD mayor of Longué-Jumelles. The talk is that a "triangulaire de la mort" between the two right-wingers, similar to what happened next door in 1997, could be fatal to the right and allow Marchand to win. I have my doubts...
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

4th (Saumurois, UMP) The Saumurois is traditionally conservative, but not in the sense of the Cholateais or the bocage angevin. Saumur itself voted for Sarkozy, as did the constituency as a whole (55.9%). This constituency was a big shock in 1997 when the Greenie Jean-Michel Marchand emerged as the surprise come-from-behind winner of a three-way runoff opposing two right-wingers who had been about tied for first in the first round. Marchand won with only 36.6% in the runoff, but he was elected mayor of Saumur in 2001. In 2002, the UMP's Michel Piron defeated Marchand in the runoff, with 58%. In 2007, Piron was reelected by the first round with 52.5%. Marchand lost Saumur to the right in 2008, after having joined the PRG. Marchand being out of the running here, Piron does not face serious competition on his right or left. Right hold, for sure.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

5th (Choletais, CNIP-UMP) The Choletais - of which this constituency covers only part - is the old reactionary/Catho/monarchist stronghold of Anjou. In that way, the fact that its deputy since 2002, Gilles Bourdouleix (mayor of Cholet) is the national leader of the old and very conservative CNIP (allied to the UMP) is strangely fitting. But the Choletais is also a very working-class region (textiles), which is of course not very apparent with its staunchly conservative voting patterns. Even though Hollande won Cholet proper, rural regions in this constituency remain right-leaning. Sarkozy won 'only' 51.2% in this constituency, though. In 2007, Bourdouleix won 56.3% in the runoff and he'd won his first term with 61.1% in the 2002 runoff. The PS has the same candidate as in 2007, and the MoDem is led by an old centrist opponent of Bourdouleix in Cholet city hall (Xavier Coiffard) who had won 16.2% in 2007. Bourdouleix does not seem very threatened, but I've seen stranger things.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

6th (Angers-ouest/Choletais, NC-CD) This is a polarized constituency, including the very leftie canton of Angers-ouest (59% Hollande) and the middle-class suburban canton of Saint-Georges-sur-Loire (51.6% Hollande) combined with very conservative and fairly working-class cantons of the Choletais (but Champtoceaux is suburbanizing). Hervé de Charette, a centrist who joined the UMP but is now the leader and sole member of Centrist Party #4587 (also called, for nerds, 'Convention democrate'), has been the deputy here since 1988. He won over 60% in 1997 and 2002 runoffs, but got a shabbier 56.7% in the 2007 runoff. Sarkozy won 53% here. This seat is moving left, slowly but surely. Hervé de Charette is running for a sixth term, and has the UMP's support, but faces a dissident candidacy from André Martin, a local mayor. The MoDem's guy is also a local mayor. The PS conceded this seat to the Greenies, in the person of Marianne Prodhomme, a local councillor in Angers. There is a DVG dissident candidacy, the PS' candidate in 2007. The left can certainly win here in a 1981-like vague rose (which, in passing, had not elected any leftie in the Maine-et-Loire back then...!), but it is a bit of a longshot and I'm not sure if a Greenie is in a position to do so. But if the right is badly divided, it is a distinct possibility.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

7th (Angers-nord/Segré, UMP) The Segré area has been a conservative stronghold, like the Choletais and the rest of the bocage angevin, for ages now. But the inclusion of two cantons of Angers (54% for Hollande in both), cantons which include some leftiezing (it's a new word, meaning 'shifting to the left'!) suburbs of Angers (Avrillé) and the presence of a tiny leftie working-class basin to the west of Segré has made this constituency more and more marginal. Sarkozy won only 50.9% of the vote here. The UMP incumbent here since 1988 is Marc Laffineur, an outgoing cabinet minister and ex-centrist. Laffineur won easily in the second round in 1997 and 2002, and won by the first round with 51.7% in 2007. He should be fine this year, though I am not sure what to make of the AC candidacy of a local mayor with MoDem support. The PS' candidate, who won 23.7% in 2007, is a local councillor in Angers. I have a hard time seeing this seat go anywhere as things stands, despite Sarko's weak margins 'round these parts.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

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I've finding myself a bit too conservative (in both sense of the term!) in my predictions... hmm...

Anybody especially eager for me to jump around to other, more interesting, departments?

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Mayenne
2007: 2 UMP, 1 PS

1st (Laval, PS)* This seat, a weird rurban gerrymander reaching from the northeast of the department takes in most of Laval. It has gained Laval nord-est but lost Saint-Berthevin and Laval nord-ouest remains excluded from the constituency. There is a major political divide at work here, between the leftie parts of Laval and its inner suburbia, and the more conservative rural cantons (notably Evron and Pré-en-Pail). Though Laval has been voting on the left for quite some time now, the constituency remained more or less right-leaning until 2007. Between 1978 and 2007, the seat was held by François d'Aubert (UDF-DL), mayor of Laval between 1995 and 2008. However, in 2007, d'Aubert was toppled from his dominance (he had won by the first round in 2002) when he was defeated by Guillaume Garot (PS) with 50.6%. Garot went on to take the city of Laval from d'Aubert in 2008. Though rural areas remain right-wing, Hollande dominated throughout Laval and some newer suburbs in the canton of Argentré, to win 51.3% of the vote. Garot, the new PS baron in the conservative Mayenne (and also one of Royal's last soldiers) will win, not in a landslide because the redistricting has weakened him a bit and because the right has a high floor, but he should not worry too much. Especially now that the right is divided. The UMP is represented by local councillor Samia Soultani-Vigneron, but she faces a right-wing dissidence organized by the DVD CG/mayor of Pré-en-Pail whose suppleant is the DLR CG for Laval-est. There is also an AC candidacy in this department ruled by AC's big boss, Senator Jean Arthuis.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

2nd (Château-Gontier, UMP-RS^)* This constituency has gained Laval's suburban Saint-Berthevin, but lost the rural canton of Loiron. The fief of Gaullist strongman Henri de Gastines between 1968 and 2002, this extremely conservative rural constituency in the old reactionary/Catho/chouan country of Château-Gontier and southern Mayenne (bocage manceau) has always been a stronghold of the right, where politics have opposed the Gaullist family to the centrist family. Sarko won 55.2% here. In 2002, the UMP's Marc Bernier won 52.1% in a runoff against a UDF candidate, the PS having been ousted by the first round. Same story five years ago: after a breezy first round, where Bernier took 43.3% to the Elisabeth Doineau (MoDem)'s 19.4% (the PS in third with 17.5%), he won the runoff by the skin of his teeth against the MoDem general councillor, with only 51.8%. Bernier, a villepiniste and sworn enemy of the other UMP deputy in Mayenne (Yannick Favennec), was forced to retire this year as the UMP was aiming to topple him anyway. A battle royal on the right is on the menu here. The favourite is Elisabeth Doineau, the MoDem's 2007 candidate who almost won. She has since joined Arthuis' locally dominant AC and is the favourite to win this year. She does not have the UMP's support - the UMP is supporting Guillaume Chevrolier, a little known local councillor who will get crushed in this battle royal. Her main rival will probably be Philippe Henry, the popular DVD mayor of Château-Gontier (who ran in 1997) whose suppleant is the DVD mayor/CG of Saint-Berthevin. The left will be kingmaker in a likely fraternal runoff between the right's families. The left could make the runoff, but it will be hindered by its division between a well-known EELV candidate, who is CG for Laval-NO, and a small town mayor who is backed by the PS. The left can make the runoff, but it cannot win it (save by a fluke).
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

3rd (Mayenne, UMP)* This constituency gains Loiron but loses Laval-NE. This constituency has usually been a right-wing stronghold, though the fairly blue-collar city of Mayenne is left-leaning. Rural areas, however, remain extremely right-wing on the whole. In 1997, the UDF incumbent since 1981, Roger Lestas, won only 52% in the runoff against the PS mayor of Mayenne. But in 2002, the ex-DL UMPer Yannick Favennec imposed himself in a divided four-way first round fight on the right and defeated the same mayor with 58% in the runoff. Favennec has since built up his base and gained national notoriety has a straight-speaking maverick who has not hesitated to bash Sarkozy and wage a civil war against Marc Bernier. Favennec, a close supporter of Copé, is the big boss of the UMP fed in the department now. In 2007, he won reelection by the first round, with nearly 59%. He is the big favourite this year, facing no significant rivals on the right and on the left, only a small town mayor from the Greenies who is backed by the PS. The left's victory would be forcing Favennec to wait until June 17 to be elected.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

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Sarthe
2007: 4 UMP, 1 PS

1st (Le Mans-centre et NO/Sillé-le-Guillaume, UMP) Le Mans is split into four different rurban constituencies, in line with French tradition. Hollande won 50.4% in this constituency, boosted by a big win Le Mans-NO (56.6%, parts of Le Mans - the uni I believe - with middle-class/public sector suburbs which went Hollande). Rural areas, especially Sillé-le-Guillaume, are far more conservative - western Sarthe is traditionally conservative, under the socio-economic and political influence of the inner west. This right-leaning seat resisted the red onslaught in 1981, 1988 and 1997 (right 56.1% in the runoff). In 2002, the longtime incumbent won by the first round while in 2007, Fabienne Labrette-Ménager won 56.6% in the runoff against a PS local councillor from Le Mans. Though Hollande won here, the right is likely solid enough here. The PS candidate is the same as in 2007.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

2nd (Le Mans-sud et est, PS) This is the most left-wing seat in the Sarthe, having given Hollande 58.4%, who won well over 60% in the three urban cantons of Le Mans, which are the low-income and most working-class place of the old industrial city. But he even won in the more affluent suburban Le Mans-est campagne and two exurban cantons. This has usually been a PS/PCF stronghold, falling to the right only in 1993 and 2000 (by-election). In 2007, the PS' Marietta Karamanli defeated UMP incumbent Jean-Marie Geveaux (who held the seat in 1993-1997 and 2000-2007) with 52.5% in the runoff. I don't even know who the right's candidate is here. Karamanli will win easily, but the FG could win up to 10% and the FN could make a nice showing, Le Pen having won 19% here.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

3rd (Ecommoy/La Flèche, UMP) This is a fairly working-class rural/exurban constituency, except for parts of the canton of Ecommoy which are more suburban. But the eastern regions of the Sarthe are fairly anti-clerical and have a long history of republicanism and radicalism. Hollande won 51.4% here, doing well in Ecommoy, Pontvallain and Saint-Calais but narrowly losing in the cantons of Le Lude or La Flèche, among others. This seat went to the left in the waves of 1981, 1988 and 1997. But in 2002, the UMP's Béatrice Pavy easily took this open PS seat with 56% in the runoff and held on in 2007 with 55.2%. Running for a third term, she is vulnerable to the left. This constituency was 'given' to the Greens, which, of course, sparked a dissident candidacy which appears much stronger, led by the PS mayor of La Flèche, Guy-Michel Chauveau, who had held this seat between 1981 and 1993 and between 1997 and 2002. His suppleant is the CG for Ecommoy. This seat can obviously go to the left, and Chauveau is a good candidate, for me. A tight one, but I'd bet on the left here. Watch out for the FN in this seat, where Marion took 20%
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)

4th (Le Mans-Sablé sur Sarthe, UMP^) This is Fillon's seat, left semi-open by his candidacy in Paris this year. Fillon has held this seat since 1981, replacing his political mentor, Joël Le Theule (who had held it since 1958) following Le Theule's death that year. Fillon had a close race in 1997, winning with 52.7% in the runoff. But in 2002 and 2007, he won by the first round, with 53.4% in 2007. This is not the usual state of things in a marginal constituency, which is very divided between the rural areas around Fillon's base of Sablé-sur-Sarthe and the working-class suburb of Le Mans, Allonnes, a PCF stronghold. Hollande won 52.6% in this seat, including over 60% in Le Mans-ouest and Allonnes, but also 56.5% in the canton of La-Suze-sur-Sarthe which is middle-class Le Mans suburbia. The right remains dominant in the three rural cantons. The left has *never* held this seat, but it might this year. The big race is between Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll (PS), who ran and lost against Fillon in 2002 and 2007; and Marc Joulaud, the incumbent in this seat (Fillon's suppleant) and mayor of Sablé. Le Foll can benefit from the seat's left-leanings, and his stature as a cabinet minister. But Joulaud hasn't had his last word. In the expectation of a left-wing victory, however...
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)

5th (Le Mans-nord/Mamers/La-Ferté-Bernard, UMP) The left won this seat in the leftslides of 1988 and 1997, but it seems like a tougher proposition this year. Hollande won with only 50.6% here, thanks almost exclusively to Le Mans (and suburbanish Ballon). The rural areas have a left-wing tradition, but it is right/far-right leaning area now. Mamers is fairly working-class, but leans right, as does La-Ferté-Bernard. Marine Le Pen did very well in some rural cantons here, which are subjected more and more to exurban influence from Le Mans and the distant, very distant, influence of Paris which is beginning to be dimly perceivable here (thanks to the TGV). Jean-Claude Boulard, who is now the PS mayor of Le Mans since 2001, won in 1988 and 1997 but in 2002, the UMP's Dominique Le Mener won. He won a second term in 2007 with 55%. The race here is a third successive matchup against Christophe Rouillon, the PS mayor of Coulaines who lost in 2002 and 2007 to Le Mener. The FN might do well here, but no triangulaires.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

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Orne
2007: 3 UMP

1st (Alençon, UMP^) The city of Alençon, historically pretty blue-collar (Moulinex), leans to the left (and, more recently, its inner suburbs do too) but the rest of the constituency, which takes in some rural and very conservative (and quite clerical) cantons of the bocage ornais, leans to the right overall. It has never elected a left-winger, and Sarko won 52.9% here despite losing badly in Alençon. The UMP's Yves Deniaud has been the incumbent here since 1993, and has since 1997 faced off with Joaquim Pueyo, who became the PS mayor of Alençon in 2008. Pueyo did well in 2007, taking 47.2% in the runoff against 52.8% against Deniaud, doing well in Alençon and his wider canton (Alençon-1). Deniaud is retiring this year, leaving his son, Bertrand Deniaud, as the UMP's candidate. But Bertrand Deniaud faces right-wing dissidents: Christophe de Balorre, a local DVD CG/mayor whose suppleant is also a CG. Pueyo is running for fourth time, boosted of course by his new political base in Alençon. The weight of right-wing rural areas remain important, but the division of the right could prove dangerous even if there is superficial unity in the runoff.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge

2nd (Perche/L'Aigle, UMP^) Covering the very rural and conservative Perche ornaise, which has long been a conservative stronghold (note conservative and not reactionary), this constituency is, naturally, the most right-wing in the department. Sarko won 57.7% here. Even the main city, L'Aigle is right-leaning. The centrists held this seat since 1962, and the deputy until 2011 (and since 1993) was the UDF-UMP Jean-Claude Lenoir, reelected by the first round in 2007 with 54.4%. He is now a Senator since 2011, so his seat is open. The right is divided between the UMP's Véronique Louwagie, CG for L'Aigle-Ouest and Jean-François de Caffarelli, a DVD CG/mayor whose suppleant is also a DVD CG/mayor. The MoDem's 2007 candidate, who won 12.2% in 2007, is also in the running. The PS will lose big here, so their candidate is a sacrificial lamb named Souad El Manaa (they have Arabs in the Perche?). The FN is quite strong in the Perche. Marion won 22.9% this year and FN candidates won 17.1% in 1997 and 15% in 2002, and could make a strong showing this year too, but a triangulaire is fairly unlikely - didn't happen in 1997. I don't know who on the right will pull this off, but the right as a whole will win easily.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

3rd (Flers/Argentan, UMP^) This is the most left-wing seat in the Orne, covering the working-class (textile, railroads, metalworking) cities of Flers, Argentan and Tinchebray whose republican leanings were established by Siegfried over a hundred years ago. Hollande actually won here, with 51.6%, doing very well in Argentan (60%) and Flers (58%). The PS won here in 1988 and 1993, with the PS mayor of Flers. Since then, the right has been dominant. Sylvia Bassot has been the deputy since 1996, but she's retiring this year. In 1997, she narrowly beat the PS mayor of Argentan (who has since moved on to higher offices...) Laurent Beauvais with 51.3%, but in 2002 and 2007 she won by the first round, with 52.1% in 2007. The PS officially gave this seat to the Greenies, who turned around and backed a nobody with an Arab name. The main left-wing ticket here is led by Yves Goasdoué, the PS dissident mayor of Flers and CG for Flers-Sud. The right's candidate is Jérôme Nury, mayor/CG of Tinchebray. Goasdoué needs to do as well as Hollande did in Argentan (and Flers too) and not loose too badly in the rural areas and Tinchebray. He is definitely in a strong position to win.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)

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Thanks, Fabien (and Antonio!)

Manche
2007: 3 UMP, 1 PS, 1 DVD
 
1st (Saint-Lô, UMP)* With the elimination of the old fourth constituency, this constituency gains the cantons of Sainte-Mère-Église and Montebourg. This is a right-wing stronghold, where the left-wing stronghold of Saint-Lô (big public sector, over 60% for Hollande) is overwhelmed by the conservatism of the rural areas. Sarko only won 50.9% here, in line with his terrible performance in the department. Hollande did well not only in Saint-Lô but also in some surrounding communities as well as Carentan, the constituency’s second smaller urban centre. Around Canisy, Percy or Tessy-sur-Vire, the Catholic conservatism unique to the bocage normand appears; while in the Baie d’Isigny (coastal Sainte-Mère-Église) the CPNT used to have a big local stronghold (it is a major hunting region with pissed off redneck hunters). In 2007, the UMP’s Philippe Gosselin won a first term with 57.7% in the runoff. In 2002, the long-time RPR incumbent won by the first round. The far-right has been strong here: Fernand Le Rachinel was the CG for Canisy for quite some time and he won 16.6% in 1997, 12.1% in 2002 and 6.8% in 2007. He has since left the FN and joined Carl Lang’s PDF, and managed to do not-so-terribly for a FN dissident in the 2010 regionals. Marine won 17.2% here. Gosselin is running again, and should win easily. The PS candidate is the CG for Saint-Lô Est. Fernand Le Rachinel is running for the PDF, so it will be entertaining to see whether he benefits from his strong local footing or he, as usually happens with his type, gets crushed by the FN.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe right
 
2nd (Avranchin/Bocage Normand, UMP)* This constituency has only gained the canton of Granville. It remains one of the most right-wing constituencies of the region, covering the still very rural and extremely conservative cantons of the Avranchin and Mortainais in the wider bocage normand. In contrast to a fairly secular region, the bocage normand, especially in these parts, has been heavily influenced by the old Catholic/clerical and reactionary attitudes of the inner west and clericalism used to be solidly implanted. Sarko won 55.3%, pretty sh**t poor by local standards. Hollande even won Avranches and Granville. René André held this seat between 1983 and 2007, when the UMP decided to back then-cabinet minister Philippe Bas, who went up against the dissident UMP mayor of Avranches, Guénhaël Huet. The PS having been trounced early, with barely 14% in distant third, the runoff opposed Huet to Bas, who had been narrowly ahead of the former in the first round. Huet beat Bas decisively in the runoff, with 57.9%. Huet, now UMP, is running again. The PS is backing a PRG city councillor from Granville, but there is a DVG candidate who is a local CG. The MoDem is backing the CG/mayor of Brécey.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe right
 
3rd (Coutances/Valognes/Côtes du Cotentin, UMP)* This constituency benefits from the elimination of the old fourth, gaining the cantons of La-Haye-du-Puits, Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, Barneville-Carteret, Valognes, Bricquebec and Les Pieux. It lost Granville to the second. Even though Coutances is more left-wing and Hollande swept the three northernmost cantons in May (Valognes, Bricquebec and Les Pieux; the latter of which includes Flamanville), the right is usually dominant here. Rural areas tend to be very conservative, as do most coastal areas, some of which are more affluent because of the old people who live there for rather simple reasons. Hollande’s three cantons in the north here and falling under the growing influence of Cherbourg-Octeville. Sarko won 51.5% here. The incumbent in the third since 1988 is Alain Cousin (UMP), who won 60.5% in the runoff in 2007. The old fourth’s incumbent was Claude Gatignol, who opted to retire after being in office since 1988. Cousin is running again, facing only token opposition from a PS regional councillor. He will win easily.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

4th (Cherbourg-Octeville/Cap de la Hague) The new fourth is the old fifth, gaining Beaumont-Hague and Quettehou from the old fourth. It is still centered around the working-class city of Cherbourg-Octeville and its proletarian hinterland (Tourlaville, Équeurdreville-Hainneville etc), which has long been an isolated island of socialism – never communism – in a sea of conservatism. Hollande won no less than 58.1% here, including over 60% in Cherbourg-Octeville, Tourlaville and Équeurdreville-Hainneville. At the legislative level, since 1988, no incumbent has ever won reelection. The PS won it in 1988, lost it in 1993 but regained it in 1997 with the then-mayor of Octeville, Bernard Cazeneuve. In 2002, Cazeneuve, who had since become mayor of Cherbourg-Octeville in 2001, lost narrowly to the UMP Jean Lemière, who in turn lost heavily to Cazeneuve, who won 59%. Cazeneuve is now a junior minister, and he has been a very popular mayor of Cherbourg. The UMP putting up no significant opposition, Cazeneuve will win easily.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 

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Calvados
2007: 3 UMP, 2 PS, 1 NC
 
1st (Caen-est, PS): This constituency covers most of the eastern cantons of Caen, its suburbs to its east and the suburban canton of Tilly-sur-Seulles. This is generally the more affluent, professional and bobo part of the city – though there are low-income inner city areas (cités) and more working-class or lower income suburbs (Fleury-sur-Orne, Saint-Germain-la-Blanche-Herbe). Usually, this is the more right-leaning of the two urban constituencies in Caen, but it voted for Hollande with 58.1%. Hollande won over 60% in Caen, which is fairly shocking (but not that surprising) considering that Caen is a fairly moderate and never really working-class place. A strong result which is, in this constituency, boosted not only by large-to-huge margins in Caen (67% in the low-income canton of Caen-9) but also by a nice win in suburban middle-class Tilly-sur-Seulles. At the legislative level, quite fittingly, the PS didn’t win here in 1988 but rather won in 1997 when Philippe Duron defeated a longtime UDF incumbent. In 2002, however, Duron was defeated in a very close contest by the then-UMP mayor of Caen, Brigitte Le Brethon. In 2007, Duron, by then president of the CR, took his revenge by defeating Le Brethon decisively (54.2%). This constituency is shifting leftwards extremely rapidly, going to a point where it’s gonna be about as left-wing as the second constituency. Duron, who defeated Le Brethon a second time in 2008 – to become mayor of Caen – is safe. The UMP has token opposition, and nobody else can mount a credible challenge.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Caen-ouest/Hérouville-Saint-Clair, PS) This constituency covers the more low-income parts of Caen and its less trendy suburbs, most notably the big ville nouvelle of Hérouville-Saint-Clair, which is by and large a low-income/inner city/cité populaire though with a tiny bobo/gentrification streak to it. It also includes the canton of Troarn, the western parts of which form part of an old working-class (the metallurgical industry) conglomeration (Mondeville, Cormelles, Giberville, Démouville). It is solidly left-wing. Hollande won 64.1% in this constituency, including 72% in Hérouville-Saint-Clair. Between 1973 and 2002, this area was represented by Louis Mexandeau, the old PS strongman in the Calvados and the eternally unsuccessful rival of the right for Caen’s city hall. In 2002, however, he was defeated by the new young UDF mayor of Hérouville, Rodolphe Thomas, who had taken the PS stronghold thanks to the left’s local troubles and divisions. In 2007, Thomas, while a strong candidate for this sector, was unable to resist Laurence Dumont, the former PS deputy for Bayeux, who won with 54.6%. This year, Dumont should win rather easily. However, she faces some not-so-useless opposition in Rodolphe Thomas (now MoDem), who won reelection to his city hall in 2008 very easily  and had a huge favourite son effect going on for him in Hérouville in the 2010 regionals when he took 39% in his city. Thomas doesn’t have UMP backing, they preferred some no-name, but he is a very strong “right-wing” candidate and can do very well for a right-winger in Hérouville. Dumont will win, but it could be by a surprisingly thin margin.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Auge-sud/Lisieux/Falaise, NC)* This constituency gains the solidly conservative canton of Cambremer. This is a politically divided constituency, where the old political/economic/geographic divide noted by Siegfried in 1910 between the plaine de Caen and the Pays d’Auge remains quite visible. The two cantons of the plaine, Bretteville-sur-Laize and Falaise (nord, sud), are solidly left-wing (59%, 58% and 57% for Hollande). The plaine, a country of agglomerated settlements (as opposed to the dispersed populations of the rest of the department) and historically a fairly poor rural area with a large mass of poor (some landowning) peasants and rural workers, has been politically different for quite some time. Old mining villages but also suburban growth in parts of Bretteville-sur-Laize contribute, today, to the left-wing leanings. Hollande also won Mézidon-Canon (whose chef-lieu is a cité cheminote) and Lisieux-2. The Pays d’Auge remained right-wing, as ever. Hollande took 51.4% overall. This seat invariably switches to the left in the leftslides. In 1988 and 1997, the PS won, with Yvette Roudy both times. In 2002, the UDF’s Claude Leteurtre won a three-way “primary” in the first round and then soundly defeated the PS in this seat left open by Roudy’s retirement. In 2007, he won reelection with 52.8%. A third successive rematch this year will oppose him to Clotilde Valter, PS CG for Lisieux-2. Panzergirl having won 20.5% here, the FN might make its mark here. Given the seat’s history and the chance of a leftslide, I would perhaps place my bets on Valter this year.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)
 
4th (Trouville/Côte Fleurie/Auge-nord, UMP)* This seat loses Cambremer and gains Ouistreham. For those who are remotely familiar with the name Trouville, they will not be shocked at all to learn that this seat is the right-wing stronghold of the Calvados. Sarko won 54.8% here, and nearly 67% in the canton of Trouville-sur-Mer. Generally, the wealthy/old people chique coastal resort towns of Trouville, Deauville and so forth  politically dominate over here, helped out by the conservatism of the more rural cantons including Pont-l’Evêque. Honfleur is more marginal, while the canton of Cabourg is divided between a right-wing coast and the very left-wing working-class hinterland of Caen (Colombelles, old bastion of the metallurgical industry in Caen). Ouistreham, recently added, posts a similar divide. In Dozulé, the PCF stronghold of Dives-sur-Mer is a lone island of red in a sea of blue. This was Michel d’Ornano’s seat between 1967 and 1991, and Nicole Ameline (UDF, UMP) has been victorious since then. In 2007, as in 2002, she won first round reelection with 53.4%. She’ll win easily this year, against a PS candidate who is something like 21.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe right
 
5th (Bayeux/Bessin-nord, UMP^)* This seat loses Ouistreham, thus solidifying it for the right. Hollande won with only 50.1% here, doing rather well in Bayeux but also in Balleroy (old mining villages) and especially Creully, where he split evenly with Sarko in Caen’s wealthiest middle-class suburbs. Rural areas of the Bessin, especially around Isigny, remain quite right-wing. The right has usually dominated here, in the person of the old Normand notable François d’Harcourt between 1973 and 1997, until d’Harcourt was defeated out of the blue in 1997 by the young Socialist Laurence Dumont, who won 51.1%. When she moved to run in Caen with Mexandeau in 2002, the UMP’s Jean-Marc Lefranc was able to easily trounce a Green candidate in 2002 and win reelection in 2007 with 55.7%. Lefranc is retiring this year, leaving the right divided. The UMP’s candidate is some local councillor in Bayeux, while there is a much stronger DVD candidacy by the DVD mayor of Bayeux, Patrick Gomont. The PS conceded this seat to the Greens, as in 2002, which is hardly a smart move in a place where CPNT used to be quite important. The EELV-PS candidate faces a dissident candidacy by the DVG CG for Creully. The redistricting probably makes a 1997 a bit harder here (you’d need to check the 1997 result without Ouistreham, which went big to Dumont), and Gomont is a good candidate who can reduce the leftie vote in Bayeux. I would err towards the right here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge
 
6th (Vire/Bocage virois/Bourguébus, UMP) Hollande won 54% of the vote here, in a weird constituency which takes in the canton of Bourguébus (plaine), a lower middle-class suburban canton of Caen and a leftie stronghold, but also Évrecy (wealthier Caen suburbs, 55% Hollande) and parts of the Bocage virois and Bessin, including Vire or Thury-Harcourt and Condé-sur-Noireau. The left is benefiting from suburbanization in Villiers-Bocage and Thury-Harcourt, plus the old working-class city of Condé-sur-Noireau. The bocage virois around Vire remains more rural and conservative, with some old clerical undertones. This seat was traditionally right-wing, until 1997 when the PRG's Alain Tourret narrowly defeated the UDF regional president, René Garrec, with 50.6%. In 2002, however, Tourret lost heavily (45.4% in the runoff) to the UMP's Jean-Yves Cousin, mayor of Vire. Cousin won a rematch in 2007 with 54.8% in the runoff. This year is another matchup between Cousin and Tourret, who is once again backed by the PS. This is certainly Tourret's best chance since 1997, and the big leftie trend here since then helps him out lots.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)

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Eure
2007: 3 UMP, 1 PS, 1 NC

1st (Evreux-sud/Plaine de Saint-André, UMP) This is a solidly right-wing constituency, mixing the southern and eastern cantons of Evreux (a left-leaning city, ruled by the PCF between 1977 and 2001) with some rural cantons in the Plaine de Saint-André and the Pays d'Ouche. Siegfried who had described the Radicalism of the plain would hardly recognize it today, because a lot of the cantons between Evreux and the Yvelines border have become a kind of weird bastard region mixing Paris and Evreux suburbia. Pacy-sur-Eure's area is more of a well-off, upper middle-class and conservative exurban type, but around Saint-André, Damville and Nonancourt, where the FN does better, we're into some less previleged and more protest-inclined 'periurbain subi' zones. Clearly, we're crossing into "eastern France" at this point, noticeable by the suburbs becoming more right-wing. Sarkozy won 55.8% here, but Marine won 22.9%. The FN won 18.4% and 14.8% in 1997 and 2002 respectively. This was Jean-Louis Debré's seat between 1988 and 2007, one of two seats not to fall to the left in 1997. In 2007, the UMP's Bruno Le Maire easily succeeded his mentor, taking 58.3% in the runoff against Anne Mansouret, perennial candidate of the left. He should hold on this year too, but faces a slightly more threatening rival in the figure of the new PRG mayor of Evreux (since 2008), Michel Champredon, backed by the PS.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

2nd (Evreux-nord/Brionne/Neubourg, UMP) This constituency includes the two other cantons of Evreux, a bit more right-leaning but also reaches in a weird shape to take in Brionne, Le Neubourg and Rugles at opposite ends of this disunited mess. Brionne is part of the southern end of a series of what Americans could describe as 'mill towns' along the Risle, and it is a left-wing/PCF stronghold. Hollande won 51% in the canton, but 58% in the city of Brionne. Le Neubourg is the heart of a wealthy rural region, which is obviously more exurban nowadays, it is very right-wing. Rugles is a rural canton, while the other regions mix old blue-collar towns with newer, lower middle-class exurbia which is prime FN territory and fairly mixed otherwise. Sarko won 52.5% in this constituency, which voted for the PS in the leftslides but has been held by the ex-mayor of Evreux Jean-Pierre Nicolas since 2002. He beat the incumbent with only 50.7% in 2002 and his 53% in 2007 was not anything to write home about. The FN won up to 17% in 1997 (22.3% for Marine), and the PCF retains a presence here. A triangulaire with the FN is possible but not that likely. Nicolas faces a tough contest from Jean-Louis Destans, the PS president of the general council.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge

3rd (Lieuvin/Bernay/Pont-Audemer, NC) Sarko also won 52.5% in this seat, held by Hervé Morin (NC) since 1998. While Pont-Audemer and Montfort-sur-Risle are left-leaning working-class areas (Pont-Audemer is a majorish old industrial centre, Montfort-sur-Risle has mill towns along the Risle); the area around Bernay and the Lieuvin in general has a political feel which is conservative, similar to that of Lower Normandy just next door. The left last held this seat between 1971 and 1986, but has not won it under its current boundaries, even in 1988 or 1997. Morin won 61.9% in a 2002 runoff and won by the first round in 2007, with just above 50%. While he will likely need to wait out until June 17 to win again, in part because the FN (Marine 22.7%) could do particularly well (a triangulaire is possible, but not that likely), Morin's opposition is too weak and divided (like in 2007, two PS candidates) for him to be seriously threatened.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

4th (Louviers/Roumois/Vallée de la Seine, PS) This constituency, which gave Hollande 51.3%, has been held by the left - in the person of François Loncle - since 1981 with the exception of 1993-1997. This is an old working-class constituency, covering the industrial and blue-collar cities of Louviers, Alizay and Gaillon in the Eure or Seine valleys, plus the low-income working-class 'new town' of Val-de-Reuil (over 70% for Hollande!). The left has declined in this constituency, likely the victim of suburban and exurban growth from Rouen and Paris. The FN and PCF both have bases in this constituency. In 1997, the FN won 20% and got a triangulaire, but it only won 14.8%. Loncle isn't a particularly strong incumbent at this point, being threatened in 1997, but he won 53.5% 2007, but he's been there long enough that he has a personal vote of kinds (Sarko won the constituency in 2007). He is not threatened this year, the UMP backing a NC regional councillor. There's talk of a triangulaire here, but the FN's gains here since 1997 haven't been as impressive as elsewhere.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

5th (Vexin Normand/Les Andelys/Vernon, UMP) The Vexin Normand is a tad isolated from the rest of the Eure, and forms a unique geographic entity. It has been under Parisian influence for a long time, but today it's basically an exurb of Paris filled with people who wake up early and commute to the Centre of the Civilized World. There are some old working-class areas in the valley around Fleury-sur-Andelle, in addition to Gisors, a railroad depot/factory town and PCF stronghold. But the rest is exurban, though Vernon is a growing young middle-class town, with some affluent suburbs. The FN is very strong here, Marine won 24% and was only 3 votes behind Hollande for second place. At the presidential level, the left is getting increasingly weaker here. Sarko won 53%. In 1997, the FN placed second behind the incumbent RPR with 21.3% and this was one of the famous 'triangulaires de la mort', resulting in the PS' victory (certainly boosted by the PCF, which took 17.7%). PS deputy Catherine Picard lost to the then-mayor of Les Andelys, Franck Gilard (UMP) who took 53% in the 2002 runoff and proceeded to win 56.2% in 2007. The left is in a weak spot this year, as the seat was given to EELV but the only main dissident is Anne Mansouret, a perennial loser (and isn't she the mother of DSK's rape victim #4564?). The FG's candidate won't be, like in the past, the popular mayor of Gisors. There's a big chance that the FN will make the runoff in one way or another, but even if it is a triangulaire, the left doesn't seem strong enough for there to be a big chance of a triangulaire de la mort. Besides, Gilard, being a Droite pop tool and all, could feasibly gain a lot of Marine votes - exurban FN voters are much more easier for the UMP to get than pissed off "ploucs" in the Pas-de-Calais. Furthermore, Carl Lang, the anti-Panzergirl/Megret 2.0 far-right village idiot, is running here for the PDF (he's from here, iirc) so he could do pretty well and spoil frontiste chances to make the runoff in one way or another.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

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Eure-et-Loir
2007: 3 UMP, 1 NC
 
1st (Chartres, UMP) This constituency has had a rocky history since 2007. In 2007, the UMP mayor of Chartres won reelection by only 59 votes. In 2008, his election was invalidated and the PS won the ensuing by-election by a comfortable margin. But only a few months later, the PS incumbent saw her election invalidated, and Gorges, fresh from a somewhat surprising reelection in Chartres, won back his old seat in the second by-election. Chartres has a long Socialist history, but the region has shifted to the right (alongside the whole department) as old traditions died out in the face of exurban growth from Paris. Sarko won 52.8%, narrowly losing in Chartres but holding up well in its affluent suburbs and raking in strong performances in the most affluent communities in the cantons of Maintenon and Nogent-le-Roi, both of which are by now very much Parisian suburban sprawl. The left held this seat between 1978 and 1993, notably with the PS mayor of Chartres, Georges Lemoine. Lemoine won again in 1997, but in 2002 he was defeated by the new UMP mayor of Chartres, Jean-Pierre Gorges, who took 54.3% in the runoff. In 2007, hurt by bad transfers from the MoDem (18.2%), Gorges won by only 59 votes (50.1%). In the first 2008 by-election, the PS’ Françoise Vallet won with 55.3%, benefiting again from the strong MoDem, at 18.5%. But a few months later, Gorges, fresh from defeating a PS-MoDem team in the municipals in Chartres, won the second by-election over a divided PS (Lemoine ran as a DVG dissident), but his 50.9% in the runoff was paltry compared to the 47.8% he raked in the first round. Gorges is running again, and faces his unsuccessful PS rival from 2008, David Lebon. This will be another close call. Gorges won narrowly in the fairly leftie climate of fall 2008, and this seat is generally shifting away from the left. But he is not particularly strong…
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge
 
2nd (Dreux/Drouais, UMP^) This seat and its main city, Dreux, are names which ought to ring bells to anybody with a good knowledge of recent French political history. The working-class city of Dreux, home to industries and new population of immigrants from North Africa in the 1960-1970s, was a left-wing stronghold until an infamous 1983 local by-election which is recognized as the FN’s first emergence (who said local by-elections were not important?!). That year, in a by-election, the FN list led by Jean-Pierre Stirbois won 16% of the vote and merged with the RPR list to defeat the outgoing PS incumbent. This controversial alliance would end as soon as 1989, but until 1998, the Drouais and the city of Dreux more particularly remained a FN stronghold. This constituency, left-leaning until the 1980s, was won by the RPR in 1988 but in 1989, Stirbois’ widow Marie-France Stirbois won a legislative by-election and became the only FN deputy in that legislature following Yann Piat’s defection. Stirbois was defeated handily in 1993 by the RPR’s Gérard Hamel, but as late as 1997 she made the runoff against Hamel, taking 43.8% (31.4% in the first round) in that duel runoff against him. However, Stirbois left town in 1998 and the local FN collapsed in 2001, unable to run a list in the local elections. It still won 18.5% in 2002, when Hamel crushed the PS with 62.6% in the runoff. In 2007, the FN polling only 7.8%, Hamel won another term with 60.4%. Sarko won 52.3% in the runoff and Marion won 21.8%, but did poorly in Dreux proper. Dreux itself has realigned of the left, Hollande won 63% there. But the right remains strong in the rest of the constituency, a mix of affluent Parisian sprawl (canton of Anet) and exurban/old rural cantons where the FN does well. Hamel is retiring this year, and the UMP is backing the CG for Anet, Olivier Marleix – yes, the son of that scumbag. The PS candidate is a local councillor in Dreux, Gisèle Boullais. Everybody’s favourite moronic douchebag, Dieudonné – who ran an anti-FN campaign here in 1997 and won 7.7% - is running as the “Anti-Zionist” candidate. The FN could make a triangulaire here, but I would bank on a straight UMP-PS fight in the runoff, in which the UMP is probably favoured.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean right
 
3rd (Nogent-le-Rotrou/Perche, UMP) This seat, which gave 52.5% to Sarko, covers the fairly blue-collar cities of Lucé and Mainvilliers in Chartres’s suburbs and reaches all the way out to Nogent-le-Rotrou and rural areas of the Perche. While Lucé and Mainvilliers are left-leaning, Nogent, despite a RadSoc tradition still kicking, leans to the right while the rural/exurban areas of the constituency are very right-wing (and also love ‘em some FN, Marion won 21.5% here, over 25% in two cantons). This seat went to the left in the leftslides of 1988 and 1997, but also in a 2003 by-election. In 1997, the PRG mayor of Nogent François Huwart benefited from a triangulaire with the FN, narrowly beating the UDF incumbent while the FN pulled 16.2% in the runoff (but 19.9% in the first round). In 2002, Huwart lost to the guy he had won against in 1997, but this time in a traditional two-way runoff in which the UMP won 53.1% (and the FN 16% in the first round). In one of those traditionally fatal Eure-et-Loir by-elections, Huwart won back his seat in 2003 with 55% in a runoff against the UMP alone. In 2007, things shifted back against Huwart, who lost 53-47 to the UMP’s Laure de la Raudière. This year, the contest opposes Huwart’s son Harold Huwart to Laure de la Raudière. The FN has the same candidate as in the past three elections, and could stage a triangulaire, potentially fatal to the UMP.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with right edge
 
4th (Châteaudun/Beauce, NC) The Beauce, a wealthy countryside region and national wheatbasket, is nowadays far more of a suburban and exurban region for Paris than anything truly rural. It is not really privileged suburbia at this point, but more of a périurbain subi/poorer lower middle-class exurban sprawl of horror type of sprawl. More distant regions of the Perche remain more traditionally rural and more isolated than most of the Beauce in this constituency. Though Châteaudun voted for Hollande, this is largely a conservative bastion. Sarko won 56.5% here, but Marine’s 23.3% was her strongest performances in the department. The exurban horror and rural areas where nobody wants to live is perfectly suited to the modern FN. Indeed, her best cantons were in the Perche and in the Beauce which is closest to Ile-de-France. Politically, this seat has usually been a right-wing stronghold, but in 1997, the Greens, with Marie-Hélène Aubert, benefited from a weakened incumbent who was unpopular with his own party, and won 52.5% in this right-wing bastion. In 2002, however, things normalized as the fluke conditions of 1997 were no more (there was also an airport extension issue at stake in 1997), and the UMP’s Alain Venot won 58.5% in the runoff against Aubert, who had placed third behind the UDF’s Philippe Vigier in the first round. In 2007, with Venot retiring, Vigier (NC) won by the first round with 57.1%. Vigier is running again, facing a EELV regional councillor backed by the PS. The FN could make the triangulaire (or even duel) here, but the FN votes in these areas had a strong Sarkozyst temptation in 2007 and could flow back to the right in a legislative election scenario.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

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Seine-Maritime
2007: 5 UMP, 5 PS, 2 PCF
 
1st (Rouen, PS)* This constituency, between 1986 and 2009, was composed only of the city of Rouen. This year it gains the canton of Mont-Saint-Aignan but loses Rouen-6, so a more marginal canton replaces a left-wing stronghold. However, the city of Rouen, the city of Jean Lecanuet and usually a stronghold of moderate centre-right parties, has been shifting left very rapidly. A normal evolution, of course, for a city which is fairly middle-class, educated and with a big population of researchers, young professionals and middle-class families – though Rouen certainly has its share of HLMs and proletarian neighborhoods. In 2008, the PS’ Valérie Fourneyron, who is now a cabinet minister, defeated the incumbent UDF mayor Pierre Albertini by the first round, a year after she had won a seat which had voted for the right even in 1997. Hollande won 56.2%, an excellent result which had him carrying even Lecanuet’s bourgeois canton of Rouen-2 and the traditionally right-wing bourgeois canton of Mont-Saint-Aignan (though only because of the other city in that canton, which is most certainly not bourgeois!). The addition of Mont-Saint-Aignan, whose chef-lieu is an old very affluent and conservative suburb of Rouen, might have been a ploy to turn this seat blue, but you can keep dreaming, especially given that the UMP lost the city of Mont-Saint-Aignan to the PS. Fourneyron will win reelection easily. The UMP is backing a no-name from the NC. In 2007, she had won 55.2% in the runoff, gaining an open seat held by the UDF.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Darnétal/Bois-Guillaume/Bray, UMP)* This seat expands into rural Bray to englobe Gournay-en-Bray, Argueil and Buchy while losing Mont-Saint-Aignan. It is a composite defended by the former UMP mayor of Mont-Saint-Aignan, Françoise Guégot. Composite is a nice way to describe this thing. Bois-Guillaume-Bihorel is a very affluent bourgeois suburb of Rouen, as are parts of the cantons of Boos and Darnétal. But Darnétal, Saint-Léger-du-Bourg-Denis and parts of Boos are old working-class industrial cities, which still retain a large low-income population of manual workers. The added parts of the Bray, especially out there in Gournay-en-Bray, are solidly conservative but also increasingly distant exurban (Paris/Oise/Rouen etc) territories where the FN does very well. Sarko won 53.6% here (against 51.2% for Guégot in 2007 in the old constituency), in a place where Guégot benefits from the redistricting-induced expansion of her constituency into rural Bray. The FN is strong in parts, but Marine only got 17% and will not likely force a triangulaire. The PS conceded this seat to EELV, and there appears to be no major PS dissidence here. The right will likely win, but a left-wing victory could be possible in the eventuality of the leftslide being a 1981 crush-everything-on-its-path tsunami rather than a more modest 1988-1997 win.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured
 
3rd (Sotteville-lès-Rouen/Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, PS^)* This constituency gains Rouen-6. This is solidly left-wing constituency, and a working-class area to this day. Sotteville-lès-Rouen has some refineries, while Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray is a large cité cheminote with a large railroad depot. Politics here are best defined as intra-left: Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray is a PCF stronghold, while the slightly less working-class Sotteville-lès-Rouen has usually tended to be a PS base, especially in recent years. Mélenchon placed a distant second here, with 18.4%. Hollande won 68.3% of the vote in the runoff! The PS has held this seat for ages, but it did lose it in 1993 – to the PCF. Besides that episode, since 1981 it has been held by Pierre Bourguignon, who won uncontested in the runoff in 1988 and 1997 because the PCF, placing second, dropped out of the running. In 2002, he won 64.3% against the UMP and 66.9% in 2007. Bourguignon was defeated for renomination this year, losing to Luce Pane, mayor/CG of Sotteville-lès-Rouen whose suppléant is the mayor/CG of Petit-Quevilly. The main opposition here won’t be the right – the UMP is backing a NC nobody – but rather the FG/PCF, which won 20.6% here in 2007 with Hubert Wulfranc, the mayor/CG of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, who is running again this year. Local dynamics indicate that the PS is the favourite. Anyhow…
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
4th (Lololand/Grand-Quevilly/Grand-Couronne/Elbeuf, PS)* This constituency gains Maromme. Above all, this is Lololand – Laurent Fabius’ constituency, held without interruptions (well, save for his hundred stints in government) by Lolo since 1978 (and has been held by the PS since 1958). It is a continuation of the third constituency, though with some areas which are more wealthy suburbs than proletarian dumps. Grand-Quevilly, Grand-Couronne and Elbeuf concentrate heavy industry, such as petrochemicals or manufacturing, while the newly added canton of Maromme/Canteleu consists of two “mill towns” in a valley. The PS dominates over the PCF here, which only finds a stronghold in Grand-Couronne. Elbeuf, historically a place with lots of Alsatian immigrants, is working-class but has always preferred a moderate tone of socialism, hence why the PCF is hardly strong there. Hollande won 63.9% here. Fabius won 67.5% in the 2007 runoff, after getting 49.9% in the first round. Lolo could win easily by the first round, but there’s a chance that the PCF mayor of Grand-Couronne, Patrice Dupray, could do better than in 2007 (7%) while the FN candidate, Nicolas Bay, is not a nobody. Anyhow…
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
5th (Packing the Lefties/Vallée de la Seine/Lillebonne etc, PS)* This seat loses Maromme but gains Lillebonne. This, my friends, is an example of packing. All cantons in here are solidly left-leaning, so Hollande took 56.5% here. This includes refineries around Lillebonne/Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon, working-class places such as Caudebec-en-Caux (old shipbuilding industry, I think), and some old mill towns/cotton industry towns in the valleys including Duclair but also Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville, Malaunay, Barentin and Pavilly. Sarko only won a handful of affluent communities in the Seine valley area and some rural plateau areas in the Cauchois parts of this packing the lefties country. The PS has long been dominant in this area, where the PCF and FN do wellish but aren’t really “strong”. Christophe Bouillon won this seat in 2007, replacing a PS incumbent who had held on since 1981 – even in 1993. He won 60% in the runoff, under different boundaries naturally. He will win easily again this year in this tailor-made seat. The UMP’s candidate is some nobody.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
6th (Pays de Bray/Dieppe/Eu, notional UMP)* This is our first ‘weird’ seat resulting from the redistricting. It combines the eliminated 11th and 12th constituencies, keeping all the cantons from the 11th but removing the cantons of Gournay-en-Bray, Argueil, Buchy, Saint-Saens, Bellencombre and Longueville-sur-Scie which were in the old 12th. The result is a composite constituency, uniting the conservative and rural Bray with the more left-wing and working-class Bresle valley and Dieppe. Hollande won 50.9% here, on the back of big wins in the industrialized Bresle valley and the PCF bastion of Dieppe, while Sarko easily dominated in the rural/exurban/poor Bray, where Marine did very well (22.8% overall in the constituency). The fight this year is a beautiful battle royal. First of all, two incumbents in this seat which would have been notionally UMP in 2007: Sandrine Hurel (PS), incumbent in the 11th, who won the seat with 52.2% in 2011, and Michel Lejeune (UMP), incumbent since 2002 in the 12th, who won 52.5% by the first round in 2007 - in a seat which had been held by the PS (Alain Le Vern) in 1993! On top of this matchup comes Sébastien Jumel, the PCF mayor of Dieppe and the young rising star in the party (hence, the PCF's candidate for every elective office imaginable). He had run in the 11th in 2007 and won 20%, and the PCF held the 11th between 1997 and 2002. However, while he is very popular and has a notable local effect around Dieppe, the new constituency is way too big for him to stand a serious chance at beating out the PS for second place (and hence to get the left-wing 'berth' in the runoff). Panzergirl won her best result here, 22.8%, so maybe watch out for the FN. Hurel should probably win.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: left favoured (kinda GAIN)
 

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7th (Le Havre-ouest, UMP)* Compared to the old 7th, it gains Le Havre-7 and Montivilliers while losing Le Havre-4. This constituency includes, except Le Havre-7 and the town of Montivilliers (a lower middle-class suburb of Le Havre), the most affluent and/or bourgeois parts of Le Havre in addition to the chic Victorian seaside suburb of Sainte-Adresse. Hollande won 51.7%, having performed quite well even in the more middle-class parts of Le Havre which were assumed to be fairly solidly right-wing, plus a narrow win in the canton of Montivilliers and dominance in Le Havre-7. The incumbent here is the new UMP mayor of Le Havre, Édouard Philippe, who took this seat when its deputy died in March. He faces the 2007 PS candidate in the seventh, Laurent Logiou (43.6% in the runoff), a regional and local councillor. The FG's candidate is Nathalie Nail, the PCF CG for Le Havre-7. The presidential results indicates that the race might be closer than expected in this seat, which had been the only seat to remain right-wing in 1988. Philippe is likely the favourite, but an upset is not to be ruled out.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean right
 
8th (Le Havre-est/Gonfreville-L’Orcher, PCF)* A tailor-made seat for the PCF, which is a compensation for the loss of one of its two seats with the redistricting (the old 6th constituency being eliminated). This seat takes in the PCF strongholds of the old 6th and 8th constituencies. Compared to the old 8th, it gained Gonfreville-L'Orcher and Le Havre-2 while losing Le Havre-7. This includes both the working-class and low-income neighborhoods of Le Havre proper, plus the very working-class (refineries) town of Gonfreville-L'Orcher, one of the last "true" PCF strongholds in France. A tailor-made seat, thus, for the PCF: 20.1% for Mélenchon, then 64.2% for Hollande. The old incumbent from the 8th, Daniel Paul, in office since 1997, is retiring in favour of the incumbent for the old 6th, Jean-Paul Lecoq, who had managed to gain the old 6th from the UMP in 2007, with 51.1% in the runoff. Lecoq is the PCF mayor of Gonfreville-L'Orcher since 1995. He should very easily, even in the presence of a PS candidate.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
9th (Fécamp/Bolbec/Pays de Caux, UMP)* This seat loses Montivilliers but gains Saint-Romain-de-Colbosc and Bolbec. Hollande won 51.4% here, doing very well in the working-class canton of Fécamp (56%) and the textile town of Bolbec (canton: 56%). Sarkozy's performance in the rural areas of this cauchois seat were hardly impressive, even if the seat was likely created with the aim of making it a more right-leaning seat. The incumbent is Daniel Fidelin, CG for Montivilliers. He faces a tough contest from Estelle Grelier, a PS MEP and unsuccessful 2007 candidate (46.8% in the runoff). If the left wins this year, I have a hard time seeing this seat not go leftie. Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)
 
10th (Pays de Caux, UMP)* This seat gains Saint-Saens, Bellencombre and Longueville-sur-Scie. Hollande narrowly won with 50.1% here, doing well in some lower-income and somewhat ruralish cantons along the coast (Fontaine-le-Dun, Cany-Barville, Saint-Valery-en-Caux, Doudeville etc) which are left-leaning for a reason which is still a bit foreign to me - iI think these might be in the industrialized valleys of the Caux, which have always been more left-wing. Sarko generally won the more rural, inland (plateau?) cantons. The defending incumbent is Alfred Trassy-Paillogues (UMP), mayor/CG for Yerville, who, like in 2007, faces the Socialist CG for Fontaine-le-Dun, Dominique Chauvel, who won 44.9% in the runoff back in 2007. I don't know enough about this seat to form a more detailed commentary, but the incumbent likely has a small edge here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

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Since I'm probably going to vote tomorrow myself, I figure I could preview "my" constituency, where I know a bit more about the local campaign (unlike in the other places):

1st French abroad (Canada-United States, notional UMP) Sarko won 53.6% (turnout 38%) in this constituency, a win due entirely to his landslide with French people in Murica, where Poison Dwarf took 61.3%. He only lost to Hollande in N'awlins, two offices in NYC (I've been told in Williamsburg...), Portland, two out of three offices in San Francisco, Berkeley and Rollingwood (??). On the other hand, Hollande won 55.8% in Canada, losing in Calgary and one office in Toronto. The UMP was originally suppose to run Christine Lagarde here, but the IMF is a way better gig. Instead, the UMP officially endorsed a carpetbagger, Frédéric Lefebvre, an outgoing secretary of state (for tourism iirc) who had been suppleant for Santini in Hauts-de-Seine 10th. Lefebvre is a type A partisan hack, who is pretty much an all-out moron (he also looks like one) who is still really smug and arrogant. He has no political talents to speak of, and got this far only because he's one of Sarko's top ass-lickers, alongside other Mensa Club members like Estrosi or Morano. I think the UMP did this just to piss me off. Fortunately, it also pissed off a lot of right-wingers, who wanted in on the job. His most prominent opponent is Julien Balkany, the brother of Patrick Balkany, a criminal who is mayor and deputy in the Hauts-de-Seine (and a close ally of Sarko, generally). Julien is an idiot who is some trader or investor in New York (hence, a criminal, like the family), whose rhetoric is based on him actually living here. Then there's Antoine Treuille, who is apparently NKM's uncle, and who is the candidate of the "droite modérée et solidaire", who lives in the states and who spammed my inbox for months. The 'ARES' candidate is Philippe Manteau, who is running as a classical liberal (in the economic sense) and talks about free enterprise and quoted Senile Ronald (Reagan) in his mailer a few months ago. Further right you get Gérard Michon, who is a member of the AFE, and who seems to be a crazy old man running some Gaullist campaign which involved, before the runoff, some weird deluded rantings about Hollande being a liar and evil person and a bunch of other anti-PS hate mail. Then there's JJSS's son, Emile Servan-Schreiber, who is running a fairly bland centre-right campaign about "open democracy" and "open economy". For good measure, there is a MoDem candidate, a FN candidate and a LaRouchite.

As I supposed, the UMP started panicking at the sh**tfest going on in the right here, so I recently got a really serious email from Jeff Copé informing me that Fredo was the only legitimate UMP candidate and that everybody should vote for him. I don't know what happened behind the scenes, because Fredo started sending me six zillion emails per day when I had barely heard from him twice in like six months. I guess that he had forgotten what he was doing.

On the left, besides a FG candidate, the PS and EELV back the candidacy of Corinne Narassiguin, a member of the AFE who lives in New York and who has some private business background. Narassiguin ran a very strong and active campaign, which was based a bit on her actually living in North America. The PRG, apparently deciding to be useful for once, ran female candidates in all 11 foreign constituencies, including Stéphanie Bowring, who is half-Newfie.

On the topic of which, CSA apparently did a poll here (n=1717):

Narassiguin (PS-EELV) 35%
Lefebvre (UMP) 19%
Balkany (DVD) 9%
Servan-Schreiber (DVD) 7%
Treuille (DVD) 6%
Granade (MoDem) 4%
Savreux (FN) 4%
Clement (FG-PG) 3%
Michon (DVD) 1%
Manteau (ARES) 1%
Clayette (Pirate) 1%

Guess who I'm going to vote for!

Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: pure tossup

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Back in France...

Charente-Maritime
2007: 3 UMP, 2 PS

1st (La Rochelle, PS^) La Rochelle is a left-wing stronghold, which has both a long Radical and republican (somewhat Protestant-influenced) tradition and history, and demographics which are favourable to the left (urban, mix of industry/administration-social etc/uni). Between 1971 and  1999, La Rochelle was held by Michel Crépeau (PRG), who transformed La Rochelle into a mini-PRG stronghold, still visible even in 2012. Hollande won 55.6% here, a result made more modest by Sarko winning over 60% on l'Île de Ré, an affluent resort island filled with old people. Hollande won all municipalities in the mainland part of the seat, including 62% in La Rochelle. Crépeau held this seat between 1973 and 1999, losing only in 1993. After his death in 1999, he was succeeded in both his offices by Maxime Bono (PS), who won 55.1% in 2007. Bono is best known for being one of Segogo's last remaining loyal supporters. Therefore, when Segogo wanted to run for a seat (and could not run in her old seat), Bono didn't protest too much when she took this seat. However, while Segogo has the backing of Solférino (more because Hollande and Maaaaartine are keen on shutting her up and are ready to acquiesce to her demand of getting the presidency of the Assembly, a nice useless plum post) and of Bono, her carpetbagging of sorts wasn't well received by the local structures all that well. She faces a dissident DVG candidacy from Olivier Falorni, the number one in the Charente-Maritime PS and La Rochelle local councillor. Segogo is likely the favourite on the left, because of her stature and institutional backing. But this race isn't over... it is only over in the aspect that the PS will hold this leftie stronghold easily, and the media narrative about the Segogo-Falorni fight will crush the UMP's Sally Chadjaa, a regional and local councillor. Everybody should be hoping that Segogo loses, of course.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

2nd (Aunis/Rochefort, UMP) This constituency covers La Rochelle's suburbs (including working-class Aytré), parts of the Marais Poitevin, parts of the ruralish Aunis and Rochefort. Hollande won 55% here, doing well in the fairly low-income and working-class city of Rochefort, but also in the more industrialized cantons of Aigrefeuille-d'Aunis and Surgères, suburban La Jarrie and Aytré. The PS gained this seat in 1997 with Bernard Grasset, who is now mayor of Rochefort (since 2001). He defeated long-time UDF incumbent Jean-Guy Branger. In 2002, his retirement allowed Jean-Louis Léonard, the former deputy for the first constituency until 1997, to win back this seat for the right. He won reelection with only 220 votes in 2007, or 50.2%. He goes up against the PS mayor of Aytré, Suzanne Tallard, but there is a dissident DVG candidacy with the PS CG and mayor for La Jarrie. Despite the division of the left, I believe, in this year's climate, that the UMP is likely doomed here.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)

3rd (Saintonge/Saintes, PS) This constituency's main city is Saintes, a poor and historically working-class Socialist stronghold. Hollande won 54.7% in the constituency, but won 57.5% in Saintes. Rural areas tend to be a bit more marginal, but even then, this is a traditionally republican and anti-clerical region, which has left its mark on the political orientation of some rural cantons in these parts. Hollande won all the cantons in this constituency, like in the second. At the legislative level, no incumbent has won reelection since 1988. The left won it in 1988, 1997 and 2007 but lost it in 1993 and 2002. Xavier de Roux (UDF, UMP) held the seat in 1993 and 2002, but in 2002 he lost to Catherine Quéré, who took 52% in the runoff. This election will be the first since 1988 in which de Roux isn't a candidate, which means the right has no strong contenders besides a NC and UMP local councillors. The left will hold on easily here.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

4th (Haute-Saintonge/Royan-est, UMP) Sarko won 51.9% here, doing best in the coastal area south of Royan which is an affluent touristy place, attractive for retirees and the like. More rural parts of the Haute-Saintonge (Jonzac etc) are more left-leaning, perhaps because they are poorer, not touristy, more isolated and still maintain the old left-wing anti-clerical traditions quite prevalent in these areas. The left held this seat in 1988 but after losing it in 1993 to Dominique Bussereau, it has failed to regain it. Bussereau won with 51.1% in 1997, but in 2007 he won by the first round with 51.7%. Strong from his stature, the fourth will remain Bussereau's stronghold. The left lacks a strong candidate.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

5th (Royan-ouest/Oléron, UMP) The safest seat for the right in this department, Sarko having won 55.1% of the vote here. The core conservative bastions of Royan and the touristy resorts of the coast, plus the island of Oléron, exert strong political influence here. The left has some strength in the northern parts of this constituency, which belong in the Rochefortais rather than in the Royan-Oléron ensemble. The left has never won this seat, held since 1997 by the UMP mayor of Royan, Didier Quentin. Quentin won 53.5% in the first round in 2007. Though Quentin is not extremely popular as mayor right now, he is not seriously threatened. He faces the PRG CG/mayor of Saujon, who is backed by the PS. Quentin will not win by the first round, but he will win fairly comfortably in the runoff in this rock-solid UMP stronghold.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe right

If I want to do all 577 seats, I will need to do shorther and more concise profiles, thus cutting short discussion of regional voting patterns in these seats; and keeping to big trends and the 2012 races.

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Deux-Sèvres
2007: 3 PS, 1 UMP
 
1st (Niort/Gâtine, PS)* This seat gains Coulonges-sur-l’Autize, Chamdeniers-Saint-Denis, Mazières-en-Gâtine and Secondigny. Niort is an old Socialist stronghold (it has been governed by the PS since 1957), in good part due to Niort being home to so many insurance mutual (mutuelles d’assurances) which have made the city quite famous and oriented towards the “social economy”. Hollande won 60.9% here, dominating in Niort and its middle-class suburbs. The incumbent here is Geneviève Gaillard, PS mayor of Niort and deputy since 1997. She won 48.6% in the first round in 2007 and 65.2%. The expansion of the seat likely precludes a first round victory, but she will crush the right – whose candidate is a no name – in the runoff.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Parthenay/Plaine Poitevine/Ségolinie, PS)* Gains Parthenay, Thénezay and Menigoute. It is a fairly incoherent mess, uniting some suburbs of Niort with Parthenay (but excluding some its semi-suburban cantons) with the plaine, which includes Ségogo’s stronghold of Melle. Hollande won 59% here, doing very well in the niortais suburbs, little industrial Parthenay and Ségogo’s strongholds in the plaine – which, as an aside for our dear little clueless journalists, does not vote left-wing only because Ségogo is from there – the plaine has a long republican and anti-clerical tradition. Nothing shocking about it being so leftie nowadays, though I’ll admit it has shifted left a lot since the 1980s. This constituency, like the first, includes parts of the old third, which was the right’s last stronghold in the department, its incumbent (now retiring) having held the seat since 1993 and winning it by the first round five years ago. The second’s incumbent is junior minister Delphine Batho, who has turned out to be a surprisingly competent and intelligent despite being a Ségoliniste (yeah, I know, shocking). Since Ségogo couldn’t turf Batho to run in her old seat, Batho is running for reelection. This old second has been held by the left since 1988, even in 1993. Batho won 57.4% in 2007. This year, she faces the NC mayor of Parthenay, backed by the UMP, who in a year like 2007 might make this a close race but who will lose handily in 2012.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Thouars/Bressuire/Bocage Vendéen, PS)* The old fourth is the new third, it gains Moncoutant, Airvault and Saint-Loup-Lamairé. Hollande won only 51.2% here, because despite dominating in the cité cheminote of Thouars – with 62%, the small industrial town of Cérizay (home to the Heuliez electric car, which I know only because Ségogo’s character in Les Guignols had a funny skit about the Heuliez) and even Bressuire; this constituency still includes the last vestiges of the solidly conservative regions of the bocage, an extension – politically, socially, economically and so forth of the bocage vendéen next door. The north-south divide it more or less created is hardly visible anymore, but still rears its head from time to time. The fourth constituency used to be a right-wing stronghold, until in 2007 the PS’ Jean Grellier narrowly and surprisingly defeated the UDF-UMP incumbent since 1993, Dominique Paillé (best known as Dodo; or the perennial election loser since 2007). Grellier should be safe, he faces the UMP mayor of Moncoutant.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

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Charente:
2007: 2 PS, 1 DVG, 1 UMP
 
1st (Angoulême, PS)* The new first, which is really an example of how to do a coherent redistricting, includes all of Angoulême (divided in two in 1986) plus the suburban cantons of Soyaux, La Couronne, Ruelle-sur-Touvre, Le-Gond-Pontouvre. This is a left-wing stronghold: Hollande won 61% here, boosted of course by Angoulême but also by its suburbs – both some low-income deprived places like Soyaux but also its more middle-class suburbs. It is hard to draw comparisons with the 2007 results, because the old first and eliminated fourth constituency have changed considerably since then. This year, Martine Pinville, PS incumbent in the old fourth – a seat she won comfortably in 2007 as a dissident local candidate against the official PS candidate, Malek Boutih, is running in this constituency. There is a chance that she could win by the first round. The UMP took some young woman as its candidate. No other serious candidacies.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Cognacais/Montmorelien, PS)* The old second gains Chalais, Aubeterre-sur-Drone, Montmoreau-Saint-Cybard, Blanzac-Porcheresse and Villebois-Lavalette. Under new boundaries, Hollande took 54.8%, his tightest result out of the three constituencies. Indeed, this region of Charente - the Cognac/Segonzac area to be specific has always been the most right-leaning region of the department since the 1980s. The wine country south of Cognac, which is quite wealthy, has usually tended to vote for the right, providing the UMP with its only somewhat solid base to speak of in the very leftist Charente. Hollande still won Cognac and Segonzac, but Sarko won his best performances in the Cognacais region. On the other hand, the addition of cantons which lie closer to the Périgord and the Limousin in terms of political traditions has served to weaken the right. The UMP last won the old second in 2002, but in 2007 it lost it to the PS’ Marie-Line Reynaud (who had already won in 1997), who took 52.8% in the runoff. Reynaud faces a local mayor from the UMP and the departmental boss of the MoDem, CG for Segonzac. Against such opposition, the PS faces no trouble holding on here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Confolentais/Ruffecois, PS)* I’m too lazy to list all the new cantons in here, suffices to say that it includes Confolens and its region, Ruffec and its region, some suburbs of Angoulême which aren’t in the first (cantons of Hiersac, Saint-Amant, La Rochefoucauld). Hollande won 60.5% here, doing best in the Confolentais (the Charente limousine), which is closer to the political traditions of the Limousin than anything else. The Confolentais has always been the most leftie region, with an old but almost dissipated PCF base. The Ruffec area is less impressive in its margins for the left, but still a left-wing country. A mix of old traditions (radicalism, anti-clericalism), economic conditions (poverty, isolation, light industries and resource extraction) and newer factors (WWII resistance stronghold) informs the leftist traditions of this region, like in the Limousin. Jérôme Lambert, related to Mitt’rrand himself, has been the PS deputy since 1988 save for 1993. In 2007, he won 44% in the first round and 61.6% in the runoff. He’s running for reelection and only faces mayor of some kind backed by the UMP. The FG could be a presence (12.2% Mélenchon).
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 

Vienne
2007: 3 PS, 1 NC
 
1st (Poitiers-nord, PS)* This seat loses Vouneuil-sur-Vienne. The constituency remains a largely urban/suburban constituency, containing the bulk of Poitiers’ northern neighborhood and suburbs. It includes some lower-income cités in Poitiers – though Poitiers overall is a fairly middle-class white-collar city – but also some more middle-class white-collar suburbs, including two communes home to the Futuroscope which has made this region quite famous. Poitiers, like other cities in western France: economically more optimistic, at the centre of a strong and growing urban agglomeration and large populations of public sector employees or salaried middle-classes (and bobos, but people like to think that 95% of those who vote for the left are bobos) have been shifting rapidly towards the left. Since 1997, this seat has been held by Alain Claeys (PS) – mayor of Poitiers since 2008, the sole leftist who survived the Raffarin-induced blue wave in 2002. In 2007, he won 59.1% in the runoff, a bigger margin than in 1997. Hollande took 60.4%. Claeys will have no trouble holding a seat which has been held since 1988, save for 1993, by the PS.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
                       
2nd (Poitiers-sud, PS): Hollande took 59.6% in this constituency, which covers southern Poitiers and its suburban surroundings. Like the first, this urban seat has been shifting leftwards quite rapidly. Hollande won the bulk of the most affluent middle-class suburbs of Poitiers, often by quite comfortable margins. Once again, the mix of populations here – some cadres, salaried middle-classes, generally well-educated, young families and so forth is all favourable to the “modern” PS. These are, like in other parts of France we’ve looked at thus far, the “integrated” suburbs which are well-off, economically optimistic and not as concerned about the day-to-day future as the “marginalized” suburbs and exurbs. Thus, even if the right won here in 1988 and most recently in 2002, it seems impossible for the UMP to win here this year. The PS won with 51.5% in 1997, but in 2007, Catherine Coutelle (PS) defeated a sitting UMP incumbent with 55.1% in the runoff. Coutelle will win handily this year, her UMP opponent is a regional councillor.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Montmorillon/Pays de Brandes, PS)* This seat gains Vouneuil-sur-Vienne. This seat is increasingly coming under Poitiers’ circle of influence, with cantons like Lusignan, Gençay or Couhé including some suburban communes. However, the rest of the constituency remains composed of more isolated small towns and ruralish areas, some of which are old industrial centres. The left is usually strong in most of these rural cantons, especially in Chauvigny, Lussac-les-Châteaux or L’Isle-Jourdain, for reasons which are quite foreign to me, but likely related to the anti-clerical and Radical traditions in this part of the world, and the influence of Limousin which is perceptible in the far south. Hollande won 55.3% in this seat, which has been held by the PS since 2007, for the first time since 1981. The PS won very narrowly in 2007, with 50.1%. In a slightly better scenario for the right, it could regain this seat. This year, the right seems to lack a strong candidate, allowing PS incumbent Jean-Michel Clément to win reelection.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: left favoured
 
4th (Châtellrault/Loudun, NC) The south of the department has shifted left, but the north of the department – included in this constituency – has shifted right. This is also where the FN is strongest (21.3% for Marine). The north, with the major industrial basin of Châtellrault, has usually been more urbanized and industrialized than the south. It is not a very rich region, and it is disadvantaged and marginalized as a sort of “bastard” region which is, with a few exceptions, not entirely urban but not entirely rural. There is a strong exurban influence here, and the population is drawn to surrounding cities and towns: Saumur, Thouars, Poitiers, Châtellrault, Loudun or Tours. The old industries in parts have declined, leaving a fairly low-income exurban/declining rural population of employees and manual workers. Politically, Loudun and the entire north of the department is quite right-wing, while blue-collar Châtellrault is more left-leaning. It was ruled by the PS between 1977 and 2008. Hollande won 53% here. At the legislative level, this is generally UDF country – or rather, Abelin dynasty country. The incumbent here since 1993 is Jean-Pierre Abelin (who had also served 1978-1981), whose father was deputy between 1962 and 1974. Jean-Pierre Abelin has held this seat since 1993, when Edith Cresson (PS) retired. He won by a tiny margin in 1997 but in 2007 he took 56.6%. In 2008, Abelin conquered Châtellrault, his family’s old stronghold between 1959 and 1977, though he only did so because the left was divided in the three-way runoff. Though Hollande’s victory in this constituency with 52.5% makes this race close, Abelin is likely helped by the divisions on the left spawned by the deal with EELV, which ‘gets’ this seat. There is a dissident DVG candidacy by the PS CG for Châtellrault-sud and mayor of Naintré. Abelin will probably win narrowly.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

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Indre-et-Loire
2007: 3 UMP, 2 PS

1st (Tours, PS)* This constituency gains Tours-nord-est, meaning that only Tours-nord-ouest is not included in this seat representing Tours. While the left's performance in the rest of the Indre-et-Loire has been anemic as of late, Tours has been shifting at a mad pace to the left, in line with other cities in the region, for reasons touched on previously. Tours is a pretty middle-class white-collar town nowadays, with its share of HLM-dominated neighborhoods, bobo central areas and old bourgeois areas. Hollande won 56.9% of the vote here. At the legislative level, Tours was the stronghold of my political hero, Jean Royer, between 1958 and 1997, who served as mayor of the city between 1959 and 1995, when he was defeated by the Socialist Jean Germain, who has been mayor since. Royer certainly won here because of his image as an independent maverick and competent manager, because his moralf****try wasn't suited, sociologically, to Tours. In 1997, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, who became Chirac's culture minister, narrowly won the race to succeed Royer. In 2007, however, Donnedieu de Vabres' time had run out and he narrowly lost (51.1% vs 48.9%) to Jean-Patrick Gille (PS). In 2001 but again in 2008, his attempt to knock out Germain proved an epic fail. Gille should hold on very easily in this leftist stronghold, now. He does face a slightly high-profile UMP candidate, Guillaume Peltier, the ex-FN and ex-MPF young kid who ought to run in better places if he wants to get a real political career. Peltier had run here in 2007, for the MPF, and won 5.9% (and then 8.4% in the 2008 locals). For the UMP, Peltier almost knocked off a PS incumbent in Tours-Sud in the 2011 cantonals. Peltier is an ambitious rising star who is also annoying (like all young rising stars, I guess), but he'll lose badly. Run in Montaigu.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Amboise/Montlouis-sur-Loire, UMP)* This seat loses Tours-nord-est. Sarko narrowly won here, with 50.6% here. This constituency is heavily suburban: almost all communes here are in the greater commuter belt of Tours, and in turn it is generally pretty affluent throughout. The left is strong in Montlouis-sur-Loire, a middle-class canton in the outskirts of Tours, and finds some strength near Amboise. Most of the seat, however, is suburban or exurban, thus leans to the right. Michel Debré lost in this constituency back in 1962, but his son Bernard Debré won here in 1988. But he lost a 1995 by-election to the PS mayor of Montlouis, Jean-Jacques Filleul, who won again in 1997 but lost to Claude Greff (UMP) in 2002. In 2007, she won reelection with 54%. She is running for a third term, after a brief stint in cabinet. The PS gave this seat away to EELV in their deals, a bonehead choice for a constituency to give to the Greenies, and resulted in a dissident candidacy from a PS local councillor in Montlouis. The EELV candidate is Christophe Rossignol, a regional councillor. The FG is running the PCF mayor of Chateau-Renault, a little working-class town in the far north of this seat. Greff is likely the narrow favourite, but her defeat in the eventuality of a 1981-like wave is not out of the question. For now, she can hope to benefit from the left's division.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right
 
3rd (Loches/Montbazon/Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, PS) This constituency goes from the far south of the Indre-et-Loire, takes in Loches and Tours' outer suburbs (Montbazon, Chambray-les-Tours, Saint-Avertin) and finishes its trail in Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, right outside Tours. The sprawling seat is both suburban, well-off and right-leaning around Saint-Avertin, Montbazon, Chambray-les-Tours; a bit more divided in rural areas which include some left-leaning small industrial towns (Descartes, Ligueil) but then extremely working-class, solidly left-wing and low income in Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, a cité cheminote right outside Tours and historic PCF stronghold (even today: Melenchon took 24%, Hue in 1995 probably did even better). Hollande won 51.79% here, but he would have lost the seat had it not been for his super-duper margin in Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (73.3%). Since 1997, the fight here has been between the PS' Marisol Touraine, daughter of Alain Touraine, president of the CG and new cabinet minister; and Jean-Jacques Descamps, who won in 1993 and 2002. She won 53.5% in 1997, lost in 2002 but won by a tiny margin (which would be gone, again, if it wasn't for some 70% in cheminot land) - 50.2%. On paper, this should be a target seat for the right, but I doubt Touraine will lose in a year like 2012, especially that she's in government now. She faces the NC-UMP CG for Grand-Pressigny . The PCF won over 11% in 1997 and 7.5% in 2007, but mostly because its candidate then was Marie-France Beaufils, the mayor of cheminot land and nowadays Senator. The FG is running the CG for cheminot land, who probably won't do as well as Beaufils could. Touraine should win without sweating too much.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: left favoured

4th (Joué-lès-Tours/Chinon/Azay-le-Rideau, UMP) Hollande won 52% in this seat, boosted by a strong performance in the two extremities: Chinon and the surrounding nuclear power plant (Avoine), where the PS usually performs strongly, and Joué-lès-Tours, a slightly more deprived suburb of Tours where Hollande took 56%. Up until Azay-le-Rideau, the Loire valley is largely a suburban area for Tours, and is more or less right-leaning. Other rural areas also tend to the right, but not uniformly and not overwhelmingly, at least in 2012. Since 1958, this has been a bellwether: a Gaullist stronghold between 1958 and 1981, then gained by the PS in 1981 and held in 1988, gained by the liberal Hervé Novelli in 1993, who lost to the PS in 1997 (narrowly: 49.2%) but won again in 2002 and 2007 - with 53.7% in 2002 and 52.6% in 2007. In 2002 and 2007 he won against Philippe Le Breton, the PS mayor of Joué-lès-Tours who is not running this year. Instead, Novelli, the leader of the UMP's so-called reformist or liberal right-wing, will face Laurent Baumel, the PS mayor of Ballan-Miré, an affluent suburb of Tours. This is a very interesting race, both because the constituency has been a "show-me constituency" since day one, but also because Novelli is a fairly high-profile guy in the UMP (though is influence is minimal). The trend against him is pretty heavy here, at least based on the May 6 results which remain a good indicator in these type of urban/suburban constituencies where "favourite son" and personality boosts are less important than in more rural constituencies when often vote more on the person. For now, I'd pin Novelli down as the underdog against a leftie favourite.
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)

5th (Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, UMP) Except for the cantons of Chateau-la-Valliere and Bourgueil, this is almost entirely Tours suburbia, the biggest town in this is Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire, the most right-wing major city in the department. Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire is an affluent suburb of Tours and UMP base, as are other affluent inner suburbs in the canton of Luynes and Neuille-Pont-Pierre. Besides the blue-collar town of Langeais on the banks of the Loire, the "rural" parts of this seat are all fairly right-leaning. Sarko won 52.5% here, his best result in the department. Since 1993, the seat has been held by the UMP's Philippe Briand, mayor of Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. The PS won here in 1988 but lost narrowly to Briand in 1997. Claude Roiron, the former PS president of the CG (and CG for Tours-nord-ouest, a leftie canton of Tours which is the only canton of Tours not included in the first constituency), lost thrice here, most recently five years ago when Briand won 55.4% in the runoff. She is running again this year, with the PS CG for Luynes as her suppleant. This seat is vulnerable, but it seems a bit out of reach for the left in these national conditions, but who knows. Briand can probably hold on once more, perhaps a repeat of 1997 (50.5%).
Hashpipe's Super-Duper Predictions: lean right

BTW, I just voted, through the internet, in my constituency. The internet system works fairly well and looks quite secure. I ended up voting for Stéphanie Bowring, the PRG candidate. Lol.

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Somme
2007: 2 NC, 1 PS, 1 PCF diss, 1 UMP
 
1st (Tom DeLay Memorial Constituency/Amiens-nord/Abbeville, Stalin United FC^)* This is quite a marvel of gerrymandering we have here. The old first was already bad enough of a blatant gerrymander, but this is a true work of art. It loses Amiens-ouest but gains Domart-en-Ponthieu, Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher and the two cantons of Abbeville. The aim of this gerrymander is to pack the main left-wing strongholds into a single constituency. It takes in the quartiers populaires in the north of Amiens, even circling down to eastern Amiens to take in the cité cheminote of Longueau in Amiens-4, then it connects with Abbeville, a poor blue-collar city in the Baie de Somme region, connecting the two with the very leftie cantons of Domart-en-Ponthieu and Picquigny (poor cantons with an old industrial base, including textiles, in places like Domart or Flixecourt). Only Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher, an old centrist fief, leans to the right in a constituency which gave Hollande 59.5%. Marine won 23.2% here, not doing swellingly in the Amiens inner burbs but doing strikingly well in places like Domart-en-Ponthieu and Picquigny, filled with declining poor industrial areas and with manual workers who find themselves attracted to urban areas. Between 1993 and 2011, the old first – which retained a strong PCF base in Picquigny and Amiens – elected the charmingly mad Stalinist Maxime Gremetz. In 2007, Gremetz, who turned increasingly mentally unstable and in his later years (to the point of looting another PCF deputy’s office or physically assaulting someone), had a falling out with the PCF which had enough of his Stalinist antics, so he ran for reelection as a dissident, facing PS and PCF opponents. He beat the PCF candidate by about ten and the PS by about five, and won reelection with a huge 59.3% in the runoff. He resigned his office in 2011. Being a safe leftie seat, it held a lot of promise for a lot of people, and created a huge sh**tfest in the PS. We had rumours about the mayor of Abbeville, but then Jack Lang, and then Hollande’s ally Faouzi Lamdaoui before pissed-off Aubry threw a hissy fit at Hollande and got one of her drones, Pascale Boistard, a local councillor… in Paris. Her main rival could be the FG, led by the PCF mayor of Camon with the PCF CG for Picquigny, who could benefit from the carpetbagging of the PS. The FN could get a triangulaire here, but in the end, the left will win – and while I would err cautiously and predict a PS win, the FG isn’t out entirely (but it will likely require placing first among the left).
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
2nd (Amiens-sud/Boves, NC)* This seat gains Amiens-ouest, the result is to make it dangerously marginal for the right (Amiens-ouest, held by the Commies, went 62% to Hollande). Hollande won 54.5% here, doing best in the parts of Amiens included in this seat. Only Amiens-6, which includes the most affluent neighborhoods of the city, and suburban Boves which includes like the only affluent suburbs in the department voted for Sarko. The old second has been won by the right since 1988, and until 2007 it was held by Gilles de Robien. In 2007, he was succeeded by Olivier Jardé, CG for Boves. Jardé won 52.8% in the runoff. This constituency was given to EELV by the PS, but there seems to be no dissident DVG candidacy here. Even if Hollande won here, I don’t really think that the left can win here with a Green candidate. It is the ‘greenest’ constituency in the Somme, but that’s not saying much, of course. In the end, I would think that Jardé will win narrowly, but I can’t count out a EELV win here entirely
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean right
 
3rd (Vimeu et Ponthieu, UMP) A totally reshaped constituency, it loses Hornoy-le-Bourg but gains Nouvion, Rue and Crécy-en-Ponthieu. The result is a gerrymander which links the Vimeu and Ponthieu together, but leaves out Abbeville which votes incorrectly. Around Molliens-Dreuil, this is Amiens’ right-leaning suburbia. The old third covered the Vimeu, coastal and inland, while the old fourth – now basically eliminated – covered Abbeville and the Ponthieu, both inland and coastal. Until 2007, the two constituencies went in sync with one another, voting PS in 1988 and 1997, and for the right in 1993 and 2002. In 2007, Gilbert Mathon (PS), now retiring, won in the fourth while the UMP held the third. On notional results, I believe the UMP won here in 2007, and the defacto incumbent is Jérôme Bignon (UMP). Hollande, however, took 53.1% here. He performed extremely well in the old Communist stronghold of the Vimeu rouge (Ault, Friville-Escarbotin, Gamaches), which is a very old industrial area (locks and faucets around Friville-Escarbotin, the glass industry along the Bresle river), while losing more narrowly in the Ponthieu and Amiens burbs. The Baie de Somme area, particularly the marshes which abound with water fowl, used to be CPNT’s top stronghold – Saint-Josse won a plurality in both the old third and fourth in 2002 – and CPNT retains some influence in Rue and Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme, though a lot of CPNT’s redneck hunters vote for the FN now. Marine won 25.3% here, second place ahead of Sarko, doing well basically throughout and especially well in the old CPNT bastions in the hunting grounds. This year, Bignon, who had defeated Vincent Peillon in 2002 and 2007, faces Jean-Claude Buisine, CG for Nouvion. The FG could also be important here. A triangulaire with the FN is likely here, and this is something which would probably hurt the UMP significantly given that Sarko in the first round was very weak – hardly surprising, the redneck hunters vote FN before they vote UMP. France-Electorale’s predictions based on 67% turnout and a FN at 15% gives the FN enough for a triangulaire, thus in the expectation of a triangulaire, I would predict a PS gain here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)
 
4th (Marleixtrocity, UMP)* This is probably the most atrocious of the sh**tbag’s atrocious gerrymanders here. The new horror combines parts of the old fourth and fifth constituencies, to take up an awful salamander shape reaching from the Oise borders to the Pas-de-Calais, circling around Amiens. Around the cantons of Villiers-Bocage, Corbie, Moreuil, Ailly-sur-Noye and Conty, the influence of Amiens is very important. Overall, except for more affluent suburbs in Villiers-Bocage, this is a poor and traditionally working-class area. The left is strong in old PCF strongholds around Corbie and its textile industry, but also in Doullens on the border with the PDC, also an old textile area. Rural areas, which are far more exurban or suburban than actually rural, have leaned more to the FN/right in recent years. Marine won 25.6% here, doing well basically throughout the constituency. Hollande won with only 51.5% here. The de-facto incumbent is Alain Gest (UMP), who won in the sixth in 2002 and 2007, but with only 50.7% in 2007 (different boundaries). The seat, I think, is notionally UMP. Gest is running again this year, facing Catherine Le Tyrant, PS CG/mayor for Montdidier. The FN will probably make a triangulaire here, which might be fatal for the UMP, Sarko having placed third behind Marine on April 22. In the expectation of a triangulaire, I would predict a PS gain here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)
 
5th (Péronne/Roye/Albert/Santerre, NC)* The fifth gains Rosières-en-Santerre and Roye. Hollande won 53.6% here, backed by the small industrial centres of Albert, Rosières, Roye and Nesle. This is a very poor and isolated, marginalized region which is not suburban quite yet but which is not purely rural either. Most municipalities here are classified as “multipolarized” – inhabitants tend to commute to small towns in the canton or broader region for work. This whole setup makes it fertile ground for the FN, which is now extremely strong in these types of geographically isolated and marginalized semi-rural multipolarized areas – and there are plenty of those in Picardy and northern France. Marine won her best result here, with 27%, nearly as much as Hollande who placed first in the first round. She won between 24% and 33% in the cantons making up this constituency. The incumbent here is Stéphane Demilly, the NC mayor of Albert who won 55.5% in 2007 against the PS, after taking 49% in the first round. Running for a third term, he faces Valérie Kumm, the PS mayor of Péronne, but also a high-profile FN candidate: Wallerand de Saint-Just, a well-known lawyer and nutjob. The FN having done so well here back in April, it is basically certain that the FN will either win a duel with the left (or the right, but I doubt it), or, more likely, a triangulaire which would almost certainly doom Demilly and the right here. I have a hard time seeing Demilly survive.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: lean left (GAIN)

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Pas-de-Calais - Part I
 
1st (Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise/Ternois/Artois, PS)* This seat loses Arras-Sud and Arras-Ouest, but gains the following cantons: Auxi-le-Château, Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, Aubigny-en-Artois, Vitry-en-Artois and Marquion. It mixes some Arras suburbs (cantons of Beaumetz-lès-Loges and Croisilles) with some rural areas, some small industrial centres (Pas-en-Artois, Vitry-en-Artois, Auxi-le-Château, Bapaume) and the regional centre of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternois. Sarko won 51% here, and Marine took 25.7%. Hollande did well in Bapaume, Vitry-en-Artois or Auxi-le-Château, but in good part this constituency includes part of the rural Artois, which is a very conservative region, in the past tending towards clericalism and hierarchal, patriarchal political dominance by nobles or landowners. Sarko won over 55% of the vote in two cantons, including that of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise. However, the old first is currently held by the PS after being, between 1978 and 2007, the stronghold of left rad Jean-Pierre Defontaine. In 2007, the PS’ Jacqueline Maquet won 52.1% in the runoff against the UMP and held the seat for the left. In a good year, this would likely be an easy target for the UMP. However, it seems very tough for the UMP to win here, this year. The centre-right is divided, with the MoDem backing the CG for Croisilles, and the UMP running with Michel Petit, CG for Beaumetz-lès-Loges. Maquet is running in the second, being from Arras and all, so the PS candidate is the CG for Bapaume, Jean-Jacques Cottel. The PS should not face lots of trouble holding on, especially if the FN is able to make a triangulaire here – which is quite likely.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: left favoured
 
2nd (Arras, PS)* Now centered exclusively around Arras (and Vimy), this seat gains Arras-Sud and Arras-Ouest, but loses Vitry-en-Artois and Marquion. Arras is a left-leaning city, giving 57% to Hollande – against 53.7% in the constituency as a whole. But it is not as working-class as other major cities in the 62: it has a large young population, tons of public sector employees and is more middle-class and white-collar than the other big PS strongholds in the 62. But it has usually been a Socialist stronghold, most famously with Guy Mollet between 45 and 75, albeit since 1995 it has been ruled by the right – rather, the MoDem, with Jean-Marie Vanlerenberghe, the man whose face scares kids away, as mayor (until last year). The cantons of Dainville and Vimy are rather affluent and suburban, and lean more to the right, but in this constituency, the left overpowers them. The old second was held by Catherine Génisson, since last year a PS senator. Briefly held by the right in 1993, she had won by a landslide in 1997 and won two successive reelections, with 56.1% in 2007. She will be succeeded by Jacqueline Maquet, incumbent in the old first, whose suppléant is the MRC CG for Vimy. The UMP’s candidate is the president of the tourism office in Arras. Marine won only 19.1% here, so it will probably be the only seat in the 62 where the FN doesn’t make it.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left
 
3rd (Lens/Avion, PS)* The new third is more or less the old thirteenth, with the addition of the PCF stronghold of Avion to piss the Socialists off some in this mining basin constituency centered around Lens. Hollande won 64% here. Lens might have tried to move on from the old mining days by becoming a bit more ‘tertiaire’, but it remains one of the poorest cities in France with huge unemployment, very low incomes, low levels of education and so forth. Lens gave 64% to Hollande, and has been ruled only by PS mayors since 1947. Noyelles-sous-Lens is also a PS stronghold. However, the mining towns of Avion and Harnes – Avion especially – are PCF strongholds. Avion has been ruled by the PCF since before the war. Mélenchon took 25% in Avion and 15% in Harnes, but only 12% in Lens. Marine won 29.4% here, including over 30% in Noyelles-sous-Lens and Harnes, and 27% in Lens and Avion. Mélenchon placed third with 16.2%. Since 2007, the old 13th has been held by Guy Delcourt, PS mayor of Lens since 1998, who succeeded Jean-Claude Bois, who had held the seat since 1981. Delcourt won 64.2% in the runoff against the UMP in 2007, and 67.7% in a runoff against Marine Le Pen in 2002. The UMP, which placed fourth in 2002 (and on April 22) is out of the running. The three main guys, besides Delcourt, are Bruno Troni - the PCF CG for Noyelles-sous-Lens who took 13.2% in 2007, and the FN whose candidate is a regional councillor. The FG could stand an outside chance, because of their strength in Avions and Harnes, at winning this seat; while the FN could place second and lose to the PS or FG in the runoff. Turnout is low in these parts, so no triangulaires 'round here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

4th (Berck/Etables/Artois, UMP)* Gains Le Parcq, Fruges and Hucqueliers; which shores up the right in this constituency - Sarko's best in the 62 with 53.4% of the votes for him. The left is strong, for reasons a bit foreign to me, in Hesdin and Campagne-les-Hesdin, but what dominates here is the canton of Montreuil (63% Sarko), home to the affluent coastal resort town of Le Touquet-Paris-Plage (78% Sarko). The addition of three inland rural cantons in the hills of the Artois is favourable to the right, given the conservatism of these areas (for reasons touched on previously). The old fourth was narrower, but it had never elected a leftie. In 2007, Daniel Fasquelle, UMP mayor of Le Touquet, won 53.9%. In 1997, his UDF predecessor won 51.2% in the runoff. Fasquelle is running for reelection and is likely the favourite in the 62's most right-wing seat. He faces his 2007 PS rival, Vincent Léna, a regional councillor. A triangulaire with the FN could be dangerous and is a possibility, but Marion only won 21.4% of the vote here. France-electorate's estimates, the best such predictions on such things imo, do not predict a triangulaire here.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: right favoured

5th (Boulogne-sur-Mer, PS^)* Gains the northeastern and northwestern cantons of Boulogne-sur-Mer, so it now includes the entirety of this industrial, working-class and low income city but also its working-class suburbs such as Le Portel, Outreau etc and some more well-off suburbs. This is a left-wing stronghold: Hollande won 57.5% here, including 62% in Boulogne-sur-Mer, 66% in Outreau and 58% in Le Portel. On the left, furthermore, the PS has been dominant here, while the PCF has never been extremely strong. Marine won 22.3% here. The area has elected a right-wing deputy only once since 1958 ('93), it elected Communists in 1973 and 1978, but has voted PS since then. In 2007, it elected the PS mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer and new cabinet minister Frédéric Cuvillier with 62% in the runoff. Cuvillier is running again. The right finally managed unity here, behind the DVD mayor of Le Portel, Laurent Feutry. The unity of the right likely precludes a triangulaire with the FN or the FN placing second, but I guess there's an outside chance either of those scenarios could happen. Whatever does happen, however, the PS will win.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

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Pas-de-Calais - Part II

6th (Collines d'Artois/Lumbres/Ardres/Marquise, PS^):* The old third being abolished, the sixth takes up Heuchin, Desvres, Lumbres (from the third), Ardres (from the seventh), Fauquembergues (from the eight) but gives away Boulogne NE and NO and Calais NO. The result is a weird thing which isn't too nice. Hollande won 51.9% here, and Marine took second on April 22 with 25.2%. Rural areas in this part of the Artois, again, remain conservative, but small industrial centres such as Marquise, Lumbres, Ardres or Guines provide the left with a very solid base. Marine did well throughout this constituency, which is largely poor, marginalized and working-class. Hollande didn't really win any canton with huge margins, but he did win the major cities of the cantons he did win by large margins (55-60% of the vote). The old sixth was represented since 2002 by The Great Poet and Cultural Connoisseur, Jack "carpetbag" Lang. For some reason, The Great Poet and Cultural Connoisseur felt like moving to another constituency or he didn't feel like facing a primary in his seat; so he decided to make a scene. Lang won with 53.8% in the old sixth in 2007. His seat left open, the PS made the boneheaded move of endorsing Brigitte Bourguignon, a local councillor in Boulogne-sur-Mer. The main left-wing candidate here is thus Hervé Poher, the PS CG for Guines who benefits from heavy local backing. The UMP is running its 2007 candidate, Frédéric Wacheux, and the FN has a regional and local councillor. The left, Poher specifically, will win fairly easily here, and there is a big chance for either a triangulaire or PS-FN runoff.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

7th (Calais, PS^)* Gains Calais NO, loses Ardres. The new seat includes the entirety of Calais and its 'burbs. The working-class and low-income city of Calais, 62% for Hollande, has usually been a left-wing - traditionally PCF - stronghold. Overall, Hollande won 57.3% here. The seat has been by the PS since 1988 with the exception of 1993. However, the PS is fairly weak in terms of organization in Calais. The city was governed between 1971 and 2008 by the PCF, most recently by Jacky Hénin, who is now a MEP. In 2008, the UMP's Natacha Bouchart, now a Senator, defeated Hénin, if only because the FN backed out of the runoff and endorsed her and she received unofficial support from the PS against the traditional enemy of PS-62, the Communists. In 2007, Bouchart, as the UMP candidate, took 49.3% in the runoff against PS incumbent Gilles Cocquempot, who is now retiring. The UMP came so close here in 2007 that their thumping in 2012 will be quite spectacular. Indeed, the right is very divided here. There's the official UMP candidate, Philippe Mignonnet, a local official in Calais; Michel Hamy, the DVD CG for Calais NO and local mayor; and Catherine Fournier, a DVD local mayor and former CG. Add to this a FN which won second place on April 22 with 25.6% and it looks quite likely that the right will be eliminated by the first round of voting. The big fight here will be PS vs. FG. The PS' candidate is Yann Capet, the son of former PS deputy André Capet (1988-1993, 1997-2000), but he is not a very strong candidate, at least to me. The FG candidate is Jacky Hénin, former mayor of Calais and MEP. He won 14.1% in 1997 running against Capet's daddy, but will likely do much better than that, and also much better than Melenchon's 12.4%. The games might be troubled a tad by Philippe Blet, the MRC 'adjoint au maire' to the mayor of Calais... who is UMP... The left will hold this seat, but which one of the PS or FG will come out on top and either be alone in the runoff or beat the FN is up for grabs.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

8th (Saint-Omer/Arques/Auchel, PS)* This seat was famous in 2007 when Michel Lefait, the PS incumbent in the old eight since 1997, was the only left-wing candidate to win by the first round. The new constituency gains the mining basin cantons of Auchel and Norrent-Fontes, while losing more rural Fauquembergues. Hollande won 58.4% here and Marine had placed second with 24.4%. The left's main bases in this new constituency are Arques, Lefait's political base and a big industrial city outside of Saint-Omer (glass industry); the two newly added mining cantons (Auchel and Norrent-Fontes, 64% Hollande in both), the small industrial town of Aire-sur-la-Lys. Getting into Auchel - a PCF stronghold - we're entering the mining basin. Most of the seat still lies outside the old mining basin, but is still largely poor and working-class. Lefait is running again, but it is unlikely he will by the first round. He faces a serious rival in the form of the PCF CG for Auchel (the canton was 17% for Melenchon, but only 10.9% in the constituency). The FN, which won 29% in Auchel with Marine and 27% in Arques, will almost certainly place ahead of the UMP, which is about as popular as the plague in these parts. Whether the runoff is the PS alone because the FG places second and drops out as per custom, or if it is PS-FN; the left will win easily.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left

9th (Béthune/Laventie, UMP)* Gains Laventie but loses Norrent-Fontes. This seat, 52.9% for Hollande, is not as leftie as its surroundings in the mining basin because it isn't really in the mining basin at this point. Certainly Béthune is a blue-collar city, but it isn't in the mining basin. There are some mining villages here (Lilliers, some communes in Béthune-sud) but not a lot. In addition, places such as Laventin and the northern suburbs of Béthune are fairly white-collar and middle-class, and are very much suburbs of Lille. Laventie, which gave about 59% to Sarko, also has a working-class past - textiles - but because of the Catholic influence in Flanders and other factors, it has been a right-wing working-class area. This seat leans to the left, still, but since 2002 it has been held by the UMP's André Flajolet. Between 1978 and 1997, it was held by Jacques Mellick, the former PS mayor of Béthune who turned out to be a major crook. Mellick hasn't helped the left out much here, and in 2007, when he ran against Flajolet, Flajolet won with 51.8% in the runoff. Flajolet is running again this year, and can hope to benefit from a divided left. The PS is backing Stéphane Saint-André, the PRG mayor of Béthune, but the locals are backing a dissident candidacy by Alain Delannoy, the PS CG for Béthune-Sud. There is also another DVG candidate here. Marine won 23.8% here, so the FN is in a strong position as well. There is an outside chance that the left's division could inadvertently lead to a UMP-FN duel which the UMP would win, but in any other scenario, such as a triangulaire or left-right duel, Flajolet is quite vulnerable. For the moment, I would rate this as a tossup, but with a left edge, not knowing what can come out of the left's division.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: tossup with left edge (potential GAIN)

10th (Bruay-la-Buissière/Nœux-les-Mines/Bassin Minier, PS)* Loses Auchel, gains Sains-en-Gohelle and Noeux-les-Mines. This seat, which gave 62.7% to Hollande, is in the heart of the mining basin. The towns of Marles-les-Mines (PCF), Divion (PCF), Bruay-la-Buissière (PS), Houdain (PCF), Barlin (PS), Nœux-les-Mines (PS), Hersin-Coupigny (DVG) and Sains-en-Gohelle (PCF) used to be core mining villages. The mines have closed, but they remain decling, marginalized and extremely deprived areas with a fairly young and poorly educated population which works in low-paying blue-collar jobs or similar activities. For sure, parts of  Sains-en-Gohelle or Houdain's cantons are more affluent in the suburban sphere of Arras, but the core here remains very poor and working-class. This region has never elected a right-winger since 1958, and has alternated between PS and PCF. Since 1988, the old 10th has been held by the PS. The incumbent since 1993 is Serge Janquin (PS). He is running for reelection. His main rivals are the FN (27.8% Marine, second place) and the FG (13.5% Melenchon). He won 67.9% in the 2007 runoff against the UMP, which should probably be eliminated by the first round in 2012. The FG is running Thomas Boulard, a local official in Divion with the mayor of Houdain as his suppleant. The FN's candidate name is irrelevant, but she could make the runoff, most likely in a straight PS-FN fight. The FG *might* stand an outside chance at pimping the PS for first, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Hashpipe’s Super-Duper Predictions: safe left