Not only is the American Republic holding its Presidential election, so is France in 2012. A notable thing to note is that the ultra-conservative National Front may win the first round of the election owing to Sarkozy’s unpopularity and the perversion of Dominque Strauss-Kahn the Socialists’ strongest candidate. Of course even if that does happen, all the other parties will promptly back the second party to curbstomp Mademoiselle Le-Pen.
Hollande wins first round of election, Sarkozy gets second: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9219926/France-election-2012-one-in-five-vote-for-Marine-Le-Pen-as-Nicolas-Sarkozy-is-beaten-into-second-place.html
So, it seems most likely that the socialist, François Hollande, will be the next President of the French Republic.
Really? The article seems to take that stance as well, but I’d think Le Pen voters would be more likely to break for Sarkozy.
A lot of them might end up abstaining (as they tend to be apathetic, poor working-class people) and in addition a lot of the moderate Bayrou voters might be scared off to Hollande if Sarkozy moves to the right.
Melenchon of the Left Party got 11% – is there any reason why all those votes wouldn’t go to Hollande in the runoff?
They almost certainly will all go to Monsieur Hollande but that adds up to only about 40% of the electorate. For him to win he needs to attract Bayrou voters or count on Le Pen’s voters to abstain.
Not really. Hollande only came top by 1%. If you assume those who voted for Le Pen will vote for Sarkozy and those who voted for Melenchon will vote for Hollande, then Sarkozy’s a comfortable winner. I don’t know enough about the other candidates to assign their voters.
On the radio this morning a French commentator said that a lot of Le Pen voters where protest votes from people who where either going to vote far left or right depending on which would make the biggest impact. A lot of these people will break for Hollande in a two horse race.
Any French posters care to assess that assesment? It sounds strange but I’m not familiar with French voting tactics.
How about educating a knuckle-dragging yankee like me re the positions of each of those mentioned?
Hollande : Socialist party, center left, often portrayed as something of a wimp
Sarkozy : UMP, center right veering ever righter, current president and *bit *of an asshole
Le Pen : Front National, 1930s style [del]Death Ray[/del] fascist. This is not hyperbole, she’s even worse than her father.
Mélenchon : far left (but not quite communist), kind of cray-cray when it comes to economy.
I doubt it honestly, considering what happened on the eve of Chirac’s second term. Back then due to a combination of extreme ratfucking among the left & greens ; the kind of protest voting you’re mentioning ; and general voters’ apathy Le Pen (senior, not the current one) snuck into the second turn of the election. That put every lefty voter in a shitty position: either abstain and risk Le Pen winning, or go out and vote for an out-and-out crook. Many still feel bitter about having been “forced” to vote for Chirac.
Plus Sarkozy’s courting those sweet, sweet 18.5% real hard, as evidenced by the UMP’s new frontpage (“vote for us if you hate immigrants and Muslims ! Also welfare queens !”). Protest votes from the left certainly explain Mélenchon’s surprising 11%, but I don’t know about the FN. It’s true that they’ve reached a higher percentage than usual (they typically gravitate around 14%) but I would wager those are protest votes from the right rather than the left.
Thanks! … and what are the big issues? Is the Greek bailout one? How about Syria?
Is it true he’s talked about nationalizing the banks and big businesses?
Is that taken seriously after Mitterand’s similar attempt? Has that been brought up to Mélenchon?
More generally:
Is there a significant difference in voter turn out between the first and second round? Do young people tend to vote significantly less on the second round than the first?
Not sure about that (honestly I’m not paying too much attention, since I don’t vote myself) but I do know he claimed he would tax incomes above 350k euros at 100%. So, yeah, looneytunes 
Not as far as I can tell - just checked the Wiki for the results of the last election (Sarkozy vs. Royal) : first round was 83.77% of registered voters, second round 83.97%. The election before that, of course, voter turnout was exceptional on the second round as previously mentioned (notably among the young). I wouldn’t expect much difference this time around however.
I dunno, but here’s what In These Times had to say about Melenchon and his party before the first-round election.
No hint there of what “selective nationalizations” would include.
Not that it has anything to do with the election, but I think it’s interesting that M. Hollande is the former domestic partner of the Socialists candidate in the last presidential election, Mme. Ségolène Royal.
[shrug] So what, so they both lose a few pinko-points for not being queer . . . 
So in American terms:
Hollande = George McGovern
Sarkozy (on a middling day) = Obama
Sakozy (in a right mood) = Romney
LePen = Rick Santorum
Mélenchon = Norman Thomas