[new puritan]

Looks like Sarkozy's allies are throwing in the towel:

New polls published yesterday suggested that Mr Hollande, 57, was leading the field of 10 candidates in the first round with up to 29 per cent of the vote. He had extended his lead over Mr Sarkozy to between two and four points. In voting intentions for the two-candidate, second round on 6 May, Mr Hollande now leads the President by a "landslide" margin of 14 to 16 per cent.

In a series of damning, private remarks, reported by the Le Canard Enchainé newspaper, senior members of President Sarkozy's government said that defeat now seemed inevitable.

"The carrots are cooked," the Prime Minister, François Fillon, was quoted as saying. "[Sarkozy's] strategy of campaigning on hard-right issues was a serious mistake." The former centre-right prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, was reported to have said privately: "There is no chance of us winning."

The President has also suffered a series of desertions. It was reported earlier this week that the former President Jacques Chirac intended to switch sides and vote for Mr Hollande. A clutch of former Sarkozy ministers and supporters, from the right, left and centre of French politics, have also declared they will vote for the socialist. They include Martin Hirsch and Fadéla Amara, two of Mr Sarkozy's ministerial recruits from the Left after his 2007 election and three former centre-right Chirac-era ministers, Azouz Begag, Corinne Lepage and Brigitte Girardin.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 58083.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'd love to see Hollande lead a renaissance among European social democrats, but I get the impression he could well end up rowing back from his more radical positions for fear of being fucked over by the bond markets. Hope I'm wrong.

[mattomac]

Well it's better to have the hope of change than to know it will just be more of the same.

I did like Radio 4's description of Mr Hollande, quite the character destruction, only mentioning he was on course to win according to the polls in the final sentence of the piece.

I hope he gets in be nice to see the back of Sarkozy.

[new puritan]

Hurrah for the blackshirts:

In present circumstances, given present choices, the only responsible vote in France next Sunday is a vote for Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Front.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... rance.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm not entirely convinced by Hollande's "the markets" stuff, mind. Unless he's got a better idea who to borrow money off. And as with the Tories, there's the usual "renegotitate" stuff, as if no-one else might have anything they might want changed in return. Like the CAP for instance.

But hope he wins.

[smod]

Le Pen got 20% of the vote

[Tubby Isaacs]

Exit polls show 20% for Le Pen.

On a brighter note, Sarko only got 25%, and he'll need virtually all the Le Pen votes on the second round. Unlikely.

Hollande got 28%. Melenchon and Bayrou have 11% and 9%.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Melenchon has told his people to go for Hollande.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Area by area results.

http://www.liberation.fr/politiques/201 ... lle_813180" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The place I lived and worked for a year (St Omere-Capelle) won by Le Pen by 5%, Sarko second.

Fuck.

edit- false alarm. St Omer (where I lived) won by Hollande. St Omer-Capelle is somewhere else, which evidently has more cunts.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Sarky by a hair, Le Pen slightly lower than her overall figure - surrounding départements went for Hollande. It'll be interesting to see what the final shares will be.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Complicated, isn't it? Doesn't look to be countryside and well-off always Tory.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Our village went for Sarky big-time, but that's big time with an electorate of 183, of whom 163 voted. He got 72 votes. Le Pen did better than I expected, Hollande worse. 3 people voted Green...
This is pure farming territory, scattered hameaux and a tiny central hub. Quite a lot of non-voting English and Dutch. Elderly. No industry at all unless you include the man who battery farms rabbits and nobody likes (but he's really in the next commune).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Christ, I thought having 32 boroughs in London was a bit plural.

[ezinra]

The Gard looks like it will be the first department ever to put the FN in first place. It's not exactly a surprise: the Gard has more than its share of retired people, pieds-noirs, small-town family businesses and artisans, all constituencies for Le Pen. It also has a lot of immigrants from the Maghreb, some of them undocumented (who do much of the seasonal agricultural labour and are paid au noir), and the biggest population of Gypsies in France, concentrated around the pilgrimage site of the black virgin at Les Saintes Marie de la Mer. The FN has put up its highest scores here and in nearby small towns such as Beaucaire and Saint-Gilles: these are working-class areas of light industry, often heavily dependent on a single employer (the Perrier factory is in Vergèzes and Haribo in Uzès) which have been hit by the délocalisation of small-scale manufacturing to eastern Europe and the Far East.

A generation ago, the Gard and especially its chef-lieu, Nîmes, were a cornerstone of the communist vote. Much of the population is descended from Spanish and Italian migrants who left during the Mussolini and Franco years; Nîmes had a communist mayor for 25 years between 1965 and 2001. That vote has collapsed: although Nîmes just about opted for Hollande yesterday, Mélenchon scored only 13%, which is barely above his national average. It seems that many voters who backed the communist party while they were of working age have switched to the FN since they retired or were made redundant. The threat to pensions is seen as double — from the liberalising right wing and a 'wave' of immigrants putting pressure on the public purse, encouraged by the left — and the FN appears as the party most likely to protect them.

[mattomac]

I don't see it as much of a surprise this is a terribly unpopular right wing leader that based on the fact he is the first leader in the 5th republic to come in second.

If you look at the Guardian this morning you would think Le Pen had come first, not been knocked out. This could leave the right in the wilderness mind.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Gard looks like it will be the first department ever to put the FN in first place.

Loads of departments put them first in 2002, including the virtually the entire east of the country.

How did the FN get 12% in Clichy-sous-Bois? I thought there were literally no white people there. That's like the BNP getting that in Bethnal Green and Bow.