Word: pen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...revoir - and good riddance - to the fondness for fringe-party voting that has recently plagued French politics. That was the central message of the first round of the nation's presidential elections. In a stark contrast to 2002, when 4.8 million people voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far-right National Front and another 11.5 million for a gallimaufry of no-hopers, an unprecedented 37 million voters turned out on April 22 to propel Nicolas Sarkozy of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) and Socialist Ségolène Royal into a May 6 runoff between...
...needs the votes of centrist François Bayrou, who took 18.5% of the first-round tally. She has reached out to Bayrou, but the would-be kingmaker is refusing to endorse either finalist. Sarkozy seems to have won nearly half the voters who in 2002 gave Jean-Marie Le Pen an 18% score. In the runoff Sarkozy will count on the rest plus Bayrou voters who share his focus on economic liberalization and cutting debt. Royal will pit her softer image against Sarkozy's tougher style. The odds favor Sarkozy, but the race is too close to call...
...were confident, but after the shock of Le Pen sneaking by us into the runoff in 2002, no one could feel safe," admits party member Arnaud Sanchez, 20. That forced many Socialist voters to "hold their nose," as Sanchez puts it, and vote for Chirac to ensure the defeat of the anti-immigration Le Pen. "I was ashamed to go abroad and have to explain to people how someone like Le Pen could get that far - meanwhile, the urgency to deny Le Pen meant France got a default president in Chirac," says Sanchez. "Thank goodness this time it's different...
...performance in his victorious 1981 presidential run, Sarkozy's 31.1% is even more formidable. While the Socialist candidate can count on the backing of most far-left candidates in the runoff, their first-round share added with the Socialists' is only 36.2%. And if much of Jean Marie Le Pen's 10.4% transfer their support to the tough-on-immigration Sarkozy, the outcome of the presidential race will be decided by the 18.5% of voters who backed split-the-difference centrist Francois Bayrou. Bayrou only recently began distancing himself from Sarkozy and the ruling conservatives after having been a close...
...buzz Sunday night on Rue Solferino was that to lure Bayrou voters behind Royal, Socialists would seize on another factor in first-round polling: Le Pen's collapse, which saw his share of the vote almost halved from the tally he scored in 2002. Much of that erosion, analysts say, came as a result of Sarkozy's unabashed efforts to seduce Le Pen voters with hard-line positions on crime, immigration, and dealing with France's troubled suburban housing projects. Socialist supporters believe that by associating Sarkozy with the politics of Le Pen, they can persuade centrist voters to back...