Sarkozy, the first outgoing French president who didn’t win the first round of the elections

The first round of the French presidential elections was held on April 22 2012. It came as no surprise that Nicolas Sarkozy (the president) and François Hollande (the socialist) were the winners of this first round. Indeed, the estimated results were announced a few days ago, sourced from a number of surveys completed in the country.

François Hollande's party is progressing

While we were told about the progression of the socialist party in the election race, yesterday, the Minister of the Interior confirmed that Hollande came top of the polls with 28,63% of the vote. This was the first victory for this candidate, who wanted to crush all opposition but in particular Sarkozy who obtained only 27,18% of the vote. It was also the first time that a candidate from the Socialist party reached a record score for the first round with the exception of François Mitterrand in 1988 (34,11%).

For many French, it was the time to react against the actual economic crisis. As a result, we have seen an increase in participation, now higher than 80%, one of the highest rates since the introduction of the president by universal suffrage.

People are fed up with Sarkozy

In fact, the French were voting against Nicolas Sarkozy’s existing government. They were fed up with the character of the president, which was, according to many politicians of the opposition, too arrogant and exhibitionist with his “bling bling” lifestyle. They obviously didn’t mention the good things he did during his five years of presidency. For example, he maintained a  stable economic situation by saving many French companies to preserve the domestic labour force, while other European countries were overwhelmed by debts and faced high unemployment. Evidently, when people are ignorant about a situation and prefer to follow the crowd like sheep, we can’t really say that their comments are relevant, especially when they are quick to criticize without substance.

The surprising rebound of Marine le Pen 

However, it must be mentioned that people who usually vote for the right-wing party didn’t show any loyalty this time because of their aversion to Sarkozy. Consequently, we saw the majority of their votes lying with the National Front led by Marine le Pen. This was actually the surprise of the 2012 presidential elections. She took over her from father just a year ago and got 17,9% of the vote, the best score ever achieved by anyone in the FN party for presidential elections.

Some difficulties for Sarkozy

After her victory in gathering people to her cause, she called them to vote blank to show their protest against both candidates Hollande and Sarkozy. She declared publicly that none of them would save anyone. It is just a ‘deception’ from the actual president or a ‘false hope’ from the socialist candidate (Le Monde). This creates difficulties for Nicolas Sarkozy who needs to find his missing votes. It is clear what he needs to do to achieve this, and it won’t be pleasing. He must try to adapt his speech to include some extremist views, which do not represent the current ideas of his party. However, if he wants to be president again, he actually needs 80% of Marine le Pen votes and therefore has no choice, he has to try to convince them.

Left-hand parties acting like sheep

As for Jean Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the French Left Front who obtained 11,11% of the vote thanks to his useless and provocative rhetoric, he has asked for all his supporters to vote for Hollande in order to crush Sarkozy. What he hasn’t said, is that he has made an agreement with the Socialist party to ensure him a place in government if Hollande is elected. Clearly the other insignificant left-hand parties followed the same path like sheep.

(source: LeFigaro.fr)

The situation at present is that Nicolas Sarkozy and his partisans are in great trouble. Whereas some think about leaving the ballot blank, the conservative politician remains confident because he believes in a France united by fraternity. He will definitely need more than his confidence to be re-elected again. 

A year after Fukushima: the Japanese trade deficit is reaching a record high

                                                                         (Source: american.com)

It has been a year since the Fukushima nuclear disaster took place. Now that we can appraise its consequences in more detail, the situation is alarming.

The earthquake of March 11 2011 led the country to the temporary closure of its nuclear plants, which pleased the entire Japanese population. As a matter of fact, despite the radioactive fallout, the Japanese economy remains the principal victim of the catastrophe. The global economic cost of the accident continues to increase day after day, seriously affecting the country’s level of debt and its foreign trade.

The foreign trade accounts of the world's third largest economic power reported a record negative balance of ¥4.410bn in March 2011, the equivalent of nearly €42bn. Indeed, the balance of trade has been deeply affected due to the impact of natural disasters on the Japanese industry and the gloomy economic situation in the US and Europe. This forced companies to import more hydrocarbons due to the reduction of nuclear power production, leading the country to a deeper indebtedness.

The weight of crude oil imports

Japanese exports increased in March for the first time in six months, largely thanks to the automotive industry and the demand from the US. However, the high price of crude oil imports put the balance of trade back into the red. Exports rose 5.9% month on month in March 2012, while economists on average expected no increase. In the preceding twelve months, exports declined by 3.7%m, a value of ¥65,281.2bn, approximately €616bn. This is mainly due to a fall of 14.7% in overseas shipments of semiconductors and other electronic components, and a decline in deliveries of home entertainment, cars, plastics, paper and metals (Reuters). 

On the other hand, Japanese imports jumped by 11.6% from April 2011 to March 2012 representing ¥69.692bn (± €658bn). Part of this was due to a jump in the volume of crude oil purchases, petroleum products and liquefied natural gas needed to fuel thermal power stations and compensate for the lack of nuclear power.

The strength of the Yen does not help

For more than a year and a half, the Japanese currency has been strengthening, which mechanically reduces the competitiveness of Japanese products to foreign markets and discourages production in the archipelago. 

Consequences

It seems to be very difficult for Japan to reconnect with its legendary market power. Even though it can count on the dynamism of emerging countries to increase demand and maybe renew its activities with the US, there is still a lack of energy resources that can seriously influence the development of high technology, an important sector for Japan. If the country continues to import as much as it does, the level of unemployment will rise leading to a less stable economy. This situation would cause many problems for Japanese citizens, and one of the most tragic one would be a decline in the competitiveness against Korea, for instance in the high tech sector.

Moreover, the Fukushima accident has raised the question about denuclearization in Europe. After the news came out, some nuclear plants over the continent were supposed to be destructed. We can understand that it was for the security of the people, however, we didn't take into account all the effects of denuclearization. It will cost an incredible loss of jobs in certain areas where nuclear activity is the main source of income. Therefore, there will be a rise in energy imports which can make a country dependent for a short time until it develops enough alternative energies to compensate for the nuclear one. This is quite a dangerous strategy in these times of crisis especially when some countries in the Middle East are suspected to conduct secretly nuclear tests to develop atomic weapons via nuclear programs. 

In fact, it would be better to secure nuclear plants while developing alternative energies at the same time in order to avoid deficit in the balance of trade, a loss in competitiveness and a dependency on imports.