"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Monday, April 23, 2007

The French Election, round one

While Sarkozy getting through to the next round is the clear good news, and my reading of both the French electorate and the French media makes him the winner in a fortnight, it is worth having another look at the people the French will vote for.

The combined vote of the Trotskyite candidates was 6% of the electorate or 2.1m people. Add to that 707,000 voting for the Communist party, 483,000 voting for anti-globalisation activist Bove, and 576,000 voting for the Greens. More details at the French Ministry of the Interior website.

A little more encouraging are the overseas French, all 331,681 of them who bothered to vote: 38.5% for Sarko compared to his 31.2% overall. It seems to me that those French men and women making their way in the world beyond France itself have a rather better idea of what is needed to drag their country out of the mire. Even so, some 2% of French ex-pats voted for the Trotskyites.

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