Le Pen Wins Twenty Percent
April 22, 2012
AT Galliawatch, Tiberge writes on the election results in France:
Marine Le Pen did very well. Much better than I thought at noon today. She probably actually garnered more than 20% but it is not likely we will ever know the true figures. At any rate, she is officially a politician to contend with and will be regarded as a major player in the French political landscape.
— Comments —
Kevin V. writes:
Incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate François Hollande advanced to the second round of France’s presidential election with 25.5 percent and 28.4 percent of the vote respectively in the first round vote, according to exit polls by French pollster Ipsos. The far right’s Marine Le Pen came third in the race with a surprise 20 percent of the vote.
Imagine living in a U.S. where one in five agree with us. Amazing. We Americans have a long, hard road ahead of us.
Jane S. writes:
During the May 2007 French presidential race, I happened to be traveling to Paris to celebrate my niece’s birthday. I was changing planes at Heathrow when they announced Sarkozy’s victory.
The next two weeks in Paris were pandemonium. There were police lines everywhere. I was stopped and interrogated everywhere I went–parks, shops, internet cafes.
The metro stations were full of plainsclothesmen. They shook me down for 25 euros (then around $40 bucks) because I had neglected to put a photo on my carte d’orange, even though I was carrying my passport and other photo ID. That happens in France. The goverment can mug you in the train station.
In their usual fashion, the “youths” were out every night, torching cars. They do that all the time anyway, but they ramped it up for this occasion, burning as many as 1,200 cars in a single night.
A friend of my niece informed me smugly that they were simply “expressing their right to free speech.” For the French, freedom of speech includes the right to destroy other’s property.
They had the customary presidential parade, in which Sarkozy traveled down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in his motorcade, only they had barricades set up so that le publique could not get closer than two blocks away. First time ever I have been to a parade where people were not allowed to watch.
The newspaper headlines were what you’d expect: “Le horreur!” They had many insulting names for Sarkozy, the worst of them being “L’Americain.” When the French use the word “American” to describe a style of kitchen design in an apartment listing, it means something good. Applied to a person, it means something bad.
The French think this is a perfectly normal way to carry on when government changes hands. In fact, they were shocked, shocked that Americans didn’t do the same when Bush was elected.
