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.