Breaking news: French socialists win first round.

[Mukulaalow]

France election: Francois Hollande wins first round

 

French Socialist Francois Hollande has won most votes in the first round of the country's presidential election, early estimates say.

 

He got about 28% of votes, according to projections based on partial results, against about 26% for centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

 

The two men will face each other in a second-round run-off on 6 May.

 

The election has been dominated by widespread anxiety over the French economy and the wider eurozone crisis.

 

The estimates - based on votes counted in polling stations that closed early at 18:00 (16:00 GMT) - were announced by French media when all voting ended at 20:00.

 

It is the first time a French president running for re-election has failed to win the first round since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

 

Mr Sarkozy - who has been in power since 2007 - was facing a total of nine candidates in Sunday's first round.

 

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen came third with about 20% of the vote - more than the breakthrough score achieved by her father and predecessor, Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, when he got through to the second round with almost 17%.

 

Leftist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon on Sunday came fourth with more than 11%.

 

Centrist Francois Bayrou, who was hoping to repeat his high 2007 score of 18%, garnered only about 9%.

Economic focus

 

There was a high turnout, estimated at about 80%.

 

Wages, pensions, taxation, and unemployment have been topping the list of voters' concerns.

 

President Sarkozy has promised to reduce France's large budget deficit and to tax people who leave the country for tax reasons.

 

He has also called for a "Buy European Act" for public contracts, and threatened to pull out of the Schengen passport-free zone unless other members do more to curb immigration from non-European countries.

 

Mr Hollande has been strongly criticised Mr Sarkozy's economic record.

 

Mr Hollande has promised to raise taxes on big corporations and people earning more than 1m euros a year.

 

He also wants to raise the minimum wage, hire 60,000 more teachers and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers.

 

If elected, Mr Hollande would be France's first left-wing president since Francois Mitterrand, who completed two seven-year terms between 1981 and 1995.

 

If Mr Sarkozy loses he will become the first president not to win a second term since Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1981.

[Mukulaalow]

good news for French muslims, these socialists are the lesser evil. I hope Sarkozy loses second round.

[Somalia]

:cool:

[Abu-Salman]

Indeed, the other socialist candidate was even promising much more equality (nobody questioned the 35 hours a week limit).

 

It is amazing they have a significantly lower GDP per capita than the USA yet offer so much more free healthcare, education, infrastructure such as trams or high speed rail and other public services to all without real loss in competitivity (higher productivity and much better educated population) :

 

"The French maternal and child protection system, known as PMI, began in 1945 with the principal aim of ensuring each child, whatever their social background, was given as healthy a start in life as possible. Today it is just one of the many pieces of the jigsaw that is the French health system; a system consistently declared one of the best and most generous in the world.

[...]

Many health experts and those working in the system say it needs reorganising and restructuring to reduce waste and inefficiency. “France always chooses the most expensive. We choose expensive hospitals over less expensive clinics, expensive specialists over less expensive general doctors, expensive doctors over less expensive nurses. And there is no control in the system”, said de Kervasdoué."

 

France's next president faces tough decisions on health

 

 

The "Front national" wants more rights for French citizens too but its success endangers the whole Euro & EU it vehemently opposes (besides, the French deficit has added to that of Spain, Italy and others).

[Mukulaalow]

I really thought when the Algerian guy killed so many people that the far right will sneak into power and make life hell for minorities, but to my surprise, the socialists are on the march. amazing.

 

Abu-salman. what is their policy towards the EU bailouts, like the Greek one, where do they stand on it?

[Mukulaalow]

Paris (CNN) -- Socialist candidate Francois Hollande declared victory Sunday in the first round of France's presidential election, setting up a showdown with incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

The proclamation, made to a crowd of supporters, is consistent with the results of exit polls detailed on French television. Hollande took 28.4% of the vote, while Sarkozy had 25.5%, according to those polls.

 

The figures suggest the two men will face a runoff. Under French law, if no candidate wins an absolute majority, the two top candidates faceoff.

 

The runoff would take place May 6.

 

The exit poll results are bad news for Sarkozy. Historically, the French president comes in first in the first round of the vote.

 

"I want to thank warmly the voters who, through their votes, have placed me in this position," Hollande said Sunday night. "This is an act of trust of confidence in my (positions) that I have presented to the French people."

 

According to the exit polls, extreme right candidate Marine Le Pen had 20% of the vote, Jean-Luc Melenchon on the extreme left had 11.7%, and centrist Francois Bayrou had 8.5%.

 

Sarkozy, the flamboyant politician who has led the country since 2007, told Le Figaro newspaper Thursday that voters had a "crucial choice" to make for their country. He pledged new strategies for economic growth and job creation, saying France was seeing signs of recovery this year.

 

Pierre Oriacombu, a business consultant, told CNN he was voting for the incumbent. "We have a lot of problems, and I think Nicolas Sarkozy does a better job with these problems than many others," he said.

 

But Julien Ceval, voting at the same polling station as Sarkozy and Oriacombu, is backing Hollande. "We need to stop Nicolas Sarkozy and to make a change," said Ceval, an engineer. "I'm not really sure Hollande is the man who will change France but I want to try."

 

The turnout was 81%, with more than 12.5 million votes cast, according to France's Interior Ministry. That marks a drop from 2007, when 84% of the nation's voters went to the polls.

 

Voting started Saturday in France's overseas territories, including Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Martinique and French Polynesia. Voters in mainland France headed to the polls Sunday.

 

Last week, polls suggested Sarkozy was trailing Hollande going into the first round of voting.

 

The economy and jobs have been key election issues, as France struggles to overcome low growth and a 10% unemployment rate.

 

Hollande, a center-left candidate, called for a European Central Bank rate cut in an interview Friday on French radio station Europe 1.

 

"There are two ways we can go. The first is to lower interest rates if we indeed believe this is a way to support growth. And I believe it is, and that the European Central Bank should go in that direction," Hollande said. The second way, he told Europe 1, "would be to lend directly to states themselves, rather than the chosen path, which has been to support the banks."

 

Asked if, as president, he would participate in a U.N.-led military intervention in Syria, Hollande said: "Yes, if it is at the request of the United Nations, we would participate in this intervention."

 

Sarkozy, who has been vocal on the international stage, told Europe 1 on Thursday that France was at the center of diplomatic efforts to put pressure on Syria over its crackdown on dissidents.

 

In an interview Friday with CNN affiliate BFM-TV, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe suggested Hollande was jumping on the bandwagon with regard to Syria.

 

"The problem with Francois Hollande is that in matters of foreign affairs, he is always running behind the train," he said.

[Abu-Salman]

Others are for business as usual but the Extreme Right was right on the money about the Euro (no pun intended):

it is economically absurd for economies as different as Greece and Germany to share a single currency, what is more a very overvalued one when trying to compete (how to export against China?):

 

 

"The European Union is suffering a crisis of confidence - in its economic prospects, its currency, and its leaders. Could this be a moment of opportunity for the populist politics of the far right? Stephen Sackur travels to the European parliament in Strasbourg to meet Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front in France. Next year, she'll be a candidate in the Presidential race - French voters are unhappy with the status quo, but are they ready for the Le Pen brand of nationalism?"HARDtalk

- Marine Le Pen - Leader, France's National Front

 

She sounds as the only one telling hard truths apart from the now powerful "Extreme left"; Islamophobia is however her main selling point...