For those
of you who are fond of politics or international affairs you might have been
following the French presidential elections. Elections in France vary a bit
from elections in the United States. First of all, in order to be authorized to
run for president, the candidate has to collect at least 500 signatures from
elected representatives in France, whereas in the US you can write down whoever
you want and have your vote count. My family in the US is quite politically
active, so naturally the French presidential elections interested me. I was
initially shocked when I found out that for the 2012 presidential elections in
France voter turnout was at an impressive 80% compared to the United States
voter turnout of 58% for the last presidential elections, which was the highest
percentage in four decades. This surprised me only because there was very
little talk about politics/elections, almost no discussions about presidential
debates, no mudslinging ads, and no little signs to put in your front yard,
only posters of the candidates placed outside the town hall.
This photo
shows all of the candidates for the 2012 elections. It was interesting to see
how different each candidate was from the others, since in the US it's
basically just a 2 party system; you're either a Democrat or a Republican.
The first
round I went with my host dad to the town hall to see how the French voting
process worked. It went very quickly, we were in and out in less than 5
minutes. First my host dad showed his id and then collected 10 slips of paper, everyone
with the name of each candidate, chose his preferred candidate and placed it in
an envelope to put in the voting urn, he also had a card that had to be
stamped, which prevents him from trying to vote multiple times, like this one
below.
That night
on the TV we found out the results; Sarkozy and Hollande received the highest
percentages and since neither one got the majority of the votes, they would
have to wait 2 weeks for the second round of elections.
Here are the percentages from the
first round of the elections. One of the more surprising results was that Marine
Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front received third place and a
very healthy 18% of the vote.
|
Candidates
|
Parties
|
Votes
|
%
|
|
Socialist Party (Parti socialiste)
|
10,272,705
|
28.63
|
|
|
Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire)
|
9,753,629
|
27.18
|
|
|
National Front (Front
national)
|
6,421,426
|
17.90
|
|
|
Left Front (Front de gauche)
|
3,984,822
|
11.10
|
|
|
Democratic Movement (Mouvement
démocrate)
|
3,275,122
|
9.13
|
|
|
Europe Écologie–The Greens (Europe Écologie–Les Verts)
|
828,345
|
2.31
|
|
|
Arise the Republic (Debout la République)
|
643,907
|
1.79
|
|
|
New Anticapitalist Party (Nouveau
Parti anticapitaliste)
|
411,160
|
1.15
|
|
|
Workers' Struggle (Lutte
Ouvrière)
|
202,548
|
0.56
|
|
|
Solidarity and Progress (Solidarité et Progrès)
|
89,545
|
0.25
|
Here's how
the posters for the candidates are presented outside of the voting place
(usually a town hall). The translated slogans are for Hollande "The change
is now" and for Sarkozy "Strong France" or "France the
strong"
So who was
it going to be? Were the French ready to say adieu to Sarkozy?
May 6th,
the day of the second round of elections we all got up from dinner to watch the
results. It was like New Years, everyone was counting down the seconds on the
screen and they had both the images of Sarkozy and Holland spinning around the
screen with us waiting anxiously for them to stop, which really mounted the
tension. It was exciting for me to be there when it happened in real time
instead of hearing about it afterwords, I'm sure this will be something I'll
remember for a long time. So without further ado, the winner is....
Francois
Hollande
It was an incredibly close election;
Francois received 52% and Sarkozy 48%.He will begin replacing Sarkozy the 15th
of May. So there was your little general culture for the day! Now we'll wait
and see how his presidency will affect the euro zone meltdown and France's
economy.
