Word: socialists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...outside the barred iron gates of a sprawling Parisian townhouse. Tension in the street gradually increased until the inevitable explosion shook the entire street - a detonation preceded by an eerie silence punctuated only by the hiss of thousands drawing a breath in anticipation. But the screaming outside the French Socialist Party headquarters on the Rue Solferino weren't the expressions of horror and despair heard five years earlier, when the right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen beat then Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin into the runoff against President Jacques Chirac. This time, the Socialist faithful were yelling...
...novel outcome imaginable, but France voted emphatically - and massively - for a classic right-left showdown in the battle for the nation's presidency. A whopping 85% voter turnout on Sunday fueled conservative standard-bearer and hands-on favorite Nicolas Sarkozy into the May 6 runoff against his principal rival, Socialist Party candidate Segolene Royal. But while both finalists spent much of their late campaigning playing to their respective hard-right and hard-left flanks, their efforts to win the presidency now depends upon their success in wooing a new force in French politics: France's suddenly surging center...
...Sarkozy's high first-round score reflects his success in seducing hard- and extreme-right voters, but he'll pay for that in the second round," predicts Pierre Moscovici, a Socialist Party heavyweight and vice-president of the European Parliament. While mainstream conservatives backing Sarkozy's tax-cutting, market-friendly economic polices may overlook his repeated pledges to help Le Pen voters "out of their ghetto" and into his camp, Moscovici warns that the hard-right lean will repel most people who supported Bayrou. "Sarkozy reminds me of Berlusconi," Moscovici comments. "The Italian right forgave him every excess, the Italian...
...Segolene Royal, this year's Socialist contender, is running second in the polls behind conservative front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy of Chirac's Union for a Popular Majority (UMP). Striking a pose of tranquility and confidence, she never explicitly invokes the prospect of a repeat of her party's ignoble 2002 debacle. But her partner, Socialist Party Secretary Francois Hollande, put it bluntly a few days ago: "If the left is to be position to rule the country, people have to vote for Royal in the first round...
...Bayrou has a potent vote utile argument of his own: Polls regularly show that he would have a better chance than Royal would have of beating Sarkozy in the head-to-head second round on May 6. His appeal has prompted several former Socialist ministers to break rank and urge their party to promise to govern in coalition with the centrists, prompting outrage from party leaders. But if Royal does make it into the second round, their tune could quickly change...