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Final result: Hollande 28.6% – Sarkozy 27.2% – LePen 17.9% – Melenchon 11.1% (Updated)
BREAKING NEWS: Sarkozy, Hollande advance to second round of French presidential election, according to exit polls
Incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate Francois Hollande advanced to the second round of France’s presidential poll with 25.5% and 28.4% of the vote respectively in Sunday’s first round, according to exit polls by French pollster Ipsos. The far right’s Marine Le Pen came third with a surprise 20% of the vote. [First exit poll results]
Hollande wins first round, sets up run-off with Sarkozy
(France24) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate François Hollande will face off in the second round of France’s presidential election after edging out the far right’s Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s first round of voting.
Official results announced by France’s Interior Ministry at 8pm showed Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, had conquered third place with 20%, the Ipsos polling agency said. Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon took 11.5%, and centrist François Bayrou 8.5%. The placement of the two leading candidates in the election were in line with dozens of opinion surveys published before Sunday’s ballot, but Le Pen’s figures were well above any of those forecasts.
Marine Le Pen far exceeded her father’s shocking second-place 16.86% score in the 2002 presidential race. Even if it was not enough to get her to the second round, the extraordinary score confirmed her presence at the head of the anti-immigration National Front party and in France’s political landscape for years to come. A drop in voter intentions for Sarkozy in the final weeks of the campaign appears to have swung to the far-right camp.
According to Eric Bonnet, head of opinion studies at the BVA polling firm, the transfer of second-round votes would favour the leftist candidate. “Eighty percent of Melenchon’s votes will go to François Hollande while only 35% of the votes of Marine Le Pen will be reaped by Nicolas Sarkozy,” Bonnet said.
- See also Booman’s recent fp story and discussion – Is Sarkozy About to Fall?
France votes in first round of presidential poll
(France24) – The wave of “anti-Sarkozyism” – as it’s known in France – has been seized on by Hollande, who has consistently led the polls in the run-up to the election. Polls have shown both Sarkozy and Hollande capturing slightly less than 30% of the votes, with Hollande a few points ahead.
The Socialist candidate voted in the central French town of Tulle Sunday, where he told supporters, “This is an election that will weigh on the future of Europe. That’s why many people are watching us.”
At his final campaign stop in the north-eastern industrial town of Charleville-Mezieres on Friday, Hollande noted that, “This is a region that put its faith in Nicolas Sarkozy, who came here making speeches on industry, jobs, workers. Everybody can see the scale of the disappointment,” he said before adding, “”Now, it’s the left’s turn to govern the country.”
France’s left has not governed since 1995 and there has been only one leftist president during the Fifth Republic – Socialist François Mitterrand.
If, as the polls suggest, Sarkozy loses the May 6 second round, he will be the first French president since 1981 to not win a second term in office. The last president to be voted out of office after completing his first term was the centre-right Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
Under French law, if no candidate wins 50% of the vote, the top two contenders head for a knock-out round, set for May 6 this year.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."