Monday, April 23, 2007

French elections

This weekend we had the French presidential elections. I mean "we" because even though I am a Spaniard, France is a huge country, the second in terms of power in the European Union and a great partner for Spain in economy and defense. Well, this weekend we had the first round, when people have to choose their candidate, and the two most voted candidates go to a head-to-head election. The favorite in all the polls was Nicolas Sarkozy, the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement, and he was the most voted candidate in this first round, getting 31.1% of the votes. In second position we had the socialist Segolene Royal with 25.8% of the votes, while the other possible runners for the second round, François Bayrou and Jean-Marie Le Pen, didn't get enough votes and finished third and forth.

From now on, a new election process starts. Royal will try to get all those votes from Bayrou, who got many of the non-left neither right voters, will Sarkozy will look for the votes of the far-right National Front of Le Pen. It will be interesting to see if the son of an inmigrant or a woman will get to the Élysée Palace.

No comments: