- Title: FRANCE/FILE: Key milestones in the race for the French presidency
- Date: 21st April 2012
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 25, 2012) (REUTERS) COW AT AGRICULTURAL FAIR SARKOZY SHAKING HANDS AT AGRICULTURAL FAIR PARIS, FRANCE (FEBRUARY 28, 2012) (REUTERS) HOLLANDE PATTING COW
- Embargoed: 6th May 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- City:
- Country: France
- Topics: Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAB5GRPKQXZ9BW0LY5A4DH30KJC
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- Story Text: 40 million French voters were preparing on Friday (April 20) to take to the polls in the first round of voting in the tenth presidential election of the Fifth Republic.
The vote has widely been seen as a referendum on the five years in office of the incumbent President, Nicolas Sarkozy, whom opinion polls have shown to be the most unpopular French president in history.
Assuming no candidate secures 50% of the vote in the first round, Sunday's ballot marks the end of the first lap of campaigning for the candidates, which, though the official start date was a few short weeks ago, has lasted several months for most.
The Socialist candidate Francois Hollande was selected by the party's first ever primary late last year and has been on the campaign trail ever since.
Throughout he has presented himself as a "Mr Normal", taking on big business in a show of solidarity with the French electorate who are still suffering in the long shadow cast by the global financial crisis and euro zone troubles.
"My real enemy doesn't have a name, or a face, or a party, he'll never run as president. And so he'll never be elected, although he does govern. My enemy is the world of finance," said Hollande at his rally at Le Bourget in January and the tenor of his campaign has changed very little since.
Despite this sentiment of solidarity, Hollande has managed to acquire political enemies and one angry protester covered the presidential hopeful in flour when he was giving a speech about housing in Paris in February.
Hollande's main rival, incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy did not officially declare his intention to run until rather late, but he had an early endorsement from Angela Merkel. The German Chancellor surprised many when she said at a news conference in February "I support Nicolas Sarkozy in every way, whatever he does, because we both belong to allied parties."
Sarkozy finally declared his intention to stand in the middle of February, saying during an interview on TF1, "Yes I am a candidate for the presidential elections".
The centre-right candidate took to the stage in Marseille only a few days later to address the crowd, including his wife Carla Bruni, and to play up his image as an experienced pair of hands on the tiller in financially troubled waters.
"Those who behave as if nothing serious has happened in the world over the last three years, those who behave as if the risks the French have come up against weren't that dramatic, they are lying to the French" he said, in a clear jibe at his socialist rival who has proposed some eye-catching, if costly, measures including hiring more teachers and civil servants to ease unemployment.
No French election campaign would be complete without the main candidates attempting to woo the agricultural vote, and Sarkozy and Hollande both did their bit by visiting Parisian agricultural fairs in February, obliging the crowds of assembled journalists by patting cows and admiring pigs.
From the very beginning, President Sarkozy was far behind his main challenger Francois Hollande. A survey by pollster Ifop published a week before the first-round vote on April 22 found 64 percent of respondents are unhappy with him as president and only 36 percent satisfied, despite his deft handling of a string of international crises. Accordingly, he has not been given an overwhelmingly positive reception everywhere on the campaign trail and he was booed and jostled as he attempted a walkabout in Bayonne in southern France early on in the campaign.
One of his main challenges has, as ever, been to woo France's hard-right voters who might otherwise fall for the charms of the leader of the National Front, Marine Le Pen. The candidate, whose father famously reached the second round of the 2002 election at the helm of the same party, had highly-publicised problems securing enough endorsements from elected officials to get her name on the ballot paper this year. Once in the running, she spent the campaign positioning herself as the people's champion.
"From today onwards, millions of citizens can have a fresh hope, will enter the campaign, and will finally be represented in the elections," she said as she launched her campaign.
The battle for third place in the election has been fierce and talk of people power has been employed not only by Le Pen, but also by the dark-horse of the election campaign, former socialist turned hard-left champion, Jean-Luc Melenchon.
His rhetoric of revolution has galvanised the left.
"The centre of the world -- the United States of America -- is in a crisis of supremacy. The economic model it relies on is in crisis," he said at a meeting in the east of Paris in April and, with the various factions of the far left united behind him and opinion poll ratings around 14 percent, people are listening.
Only days after its official start, the campaign was suspended as France was shaken by events in Toulouse, when al Qaeda-inspired gunman Mohammed Merah shot seven people, including three Jewish children and three French soldiers, before himself going down in a hail of bullets after a thirty hour stand-off with the police outside his flat.
The political establishment was quick to react with President Sarkozy saying at an election rally, "Today I would like to say that these crimes are not the crimes of a mad person. Because a mad person is irresponsible. These crimes are those of a monster and a fanatic."
Once more questions of security and terrorism were back on the agenda and the President was criticised by some on the left who claimed he was taking advantage of the national tragedy.
In a show of unity, Francois Hollande was given the blessing of his former partner and the 2007 presidential contender, Segolene Royal, who made an -- albeit brief -- appearance at an Hollande rally in Rennes.
At the start of the final week of campaigning on Sunday (April 15), both Sarkozy and Hollande staged huge open-air at rallies at different locations in Paris, unusual for mainstream political parties in French elections. Both camps claimed to have gathered together over 100,000 supporters and both were looking to build up a head of steam which will catapult them through the first round on Sunday with sufficient momentum to make it to victory in the second round on May 6.
For the moment, the polls are clear. Whilst the two main candidates are neck-and-neck in the first round, Hollande is predicted to take the second by a margin of up to 54 percent of the vote. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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