Note: I’ll be covering the first round of the French election from about 5 p.m. Paris time on! Tune into Le Figaro in English or follow us on Facebook and Twitter for minute by minute election updates!
Today is the day of the first round of French elections. If you aren’t familiar with the French system, this is how it works. Presidential elections are held every five years. Traditionally, the election is held in two rounds.
There are multiple candidates on the ballot in the first round (there are ten this time) and French voters can vote for whoever they like. After the results are totaled, if no candidate wins more than half of all ballots, the top two candidates go on to a run-off round.
In two weeks, on May 6, all the French will turn out again at the polls to choose between the two remaining candidates.
French law says that the media (and anyone else for that matter) can’t release election results until 8 p.m. tonight. Any leak of results before that can result in a 75,000 euro fine. Ouch. In this age of lighting journalism, internet and social media, lots of people are threatening to release the results ahead of time (notably the bloggers and the Belgian press.)
But a grand old newspaper like Le Figaro is too well-known and upstanding to mess with a law like that. So, under penalty of the guillotine from our superiors, we abide by the 8 p.m. rule— meaning that for us journalists, it will be a long and exciting Sunday-going-on-Monday night. Good thing Le Fig has generously offered to pay for taxis for all of us!
What’s on the menu
If you are lost amongst all the candidates, here is a little guide. I am going to go from left to right (politically speaking). NOTE: This guide is meant to be both informative and humorous. If you find any opinion expressed in the following paragraphs, it is my own. If you find anything you disagree with, let me know!
Philippe Poutou: Peace, Love and Poutou. Poutou, a former factory worker and a big unionist, follows in the footsteps of a postman for his party’s presidential candidate. Poutou doesn’t think we should work, talks about hanging out with his “buddies” and is down right adorable. His number one political goal is “to get rid of Sarkozy.” I would hang out with him any day.
Nathalie Arnaud of the Worker’s Struggle party is right there with Poutou (but less adorable.)
Eva Joly: Eva Joly of the Green Party started out a fantastic campaign… that sort of fizzled out. For awhile, she was in talks with the Socialists about forming an anti-nuclear coalition, but that also seemed to evaporate. She still has a number of followers who will vote for her to try and get some airtime for environmental issues, but even her own party members have been seen giggling at her heavy Norwegian accent (she became a French citizen later in her life).
Jean-Luc Mélenchon: Mélenchon is the suprise candidate of the election who very well may come in third. It has become a real trend to vote Mélenchon for the young Left (you know, I picked up my tofu, organic bean sprouts and Mélenchon tee-shirt today, which I will wear because my Che Guevara tee-shirt is in the laundry) But he has managed to evoke a passion in Left voters that Socialist Hollande has struggled to find. Mélenchon is fiery: he tells the rich that he and his followers are “dangerous” during campaign rallies. He has also openly confronted far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in what is becoming a “battle of the Fronts” and also a battle for third place. If Mélenchon does get third place in the first round, Hollande will probably swing his campaign farther to the left to try and seduce Mélenchon’s voters for the second round.
François Hollande: The Socialist candidate has tried ever so hard to clean himself up for the elections: he lost weight, bought new clothes, stopped making off-color jokes, hired a speaking coach and got himself a proper, professional and pretty girlfriend. Still, he had to step into the void when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the expected Socialist candidate, fells from grace after sordid sex scandals. Hollande lacks charisma (it is DSK who is the… cough cough… ladies man) and a strong economic plan (DSK was head of the International Monetary Fund) and doesn’t exactly evoke passion in many of his followers… except those who are passionately anti-Sarkozy. Still, there are a lot of people passionately anti-Sarkozy and Hollande, with his “Change is Now” program is the election favorite.
François Bayrou: Bayrou is the centrist candidate that is both hated and courted by both the Left and the Right as he could steal support from either of them.
Nicolas Sarkozy: What can I say about current president Nicolas Sarkozy? A lot. A lot of French will vote for this conservative candidate because he has been projecting himself as the strong man to get France through economic hard times (his campaign is called “La France forte” or “Strong France.”) But an equally strong number of people are virulently anti-Sarkozy. He has been accused of shifting too far right during his presidency. He can’t escape from his bling-bling label (his wife is a former model) and he is definitely candidate of the rich (whereas Hollande has promised to tax the rich at 75%, an idea which fascinates Americans).
Marine Le Pen: Far-right Le Pen is competing neck and neck with Mélenchon for the spot as third place candidate. Like Hollande (and Mélenchon), she is really capitalizing on the anti-Sarkozy vote (indeed, if it is Sarkozy and Hollande who make it to the second round, a lot of her followers, albeit far-right, will vote for Socialist Hollande!) While Sarkozy has the rich conservatives, Le Pen tends to seduce the poorer conservatives who are worried about immigration and losing their jobs and typical French values. Le Pen has an impressive amount of support, especially with young people. This scares other French voters who watched her infamous father make it to the second round a few elections ago. Granted, Marine is a lot nicer-seeming than her father and she doesn’t say anti-Semitic and racist things all the time. So she has that going for her. But despite the nice image, a lot of her ideas remain remarkably close to Daddy’s.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan: Dupont-Aignan’s program bears some resemblances to Marine Le Pen’s program. His biggest stance is that he is MAJOR euro skeptic and wants out of the EU.
Jacques Cheminade: Most people don’t really know what this right-wing candidate is on about. I’m not kidding. He really is a question mark candidate who says he is more “Gaullist than Sarkozy and more left-wing than Hollande.” Ok.
My predictions
I have now spent six months covering the election campaigns. I am by no means an expert, but I am going to launch a bet.
The last pre-election polls came out on Thursday and Friday. Four said Hollande would win and a fifth said he’d tie with Sarkozy in the first round. I agree that “change is now.”
I think that Hollande will roll into first place, Sarkozy will follow closely behind in second and Marine Le Pen will rake up a surprising number of votes. The thing is, Mélenchon’s supporters may strategically vote Hollande on election day just to get a Left person in office. Le Pen’s voters, however, will stick with her as their candidate.
We’ll see!
Links for election coverage
Like I said, if this stuff interests you: check for updates on Le Figaro in English or follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
If you are looking for other English-language coverage of the election, I seriously recommend that you check out the Elysée blog run by British magazine the Economist. It is a great blog with lots of well-written articles on the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the election à la française!
I also really like France 24’s English service. They have an absolute army of great Anglophone journalists working on election coverage. By the way, I would also LOVE to join their army. As in, dream job. Also, here is a link to their short and sweet guide to candidates.