Aby The Liberal

Aby May 30th, 2007

Nicholas Sarkozy bagged the presidency of the Fifth French Republic on 6th May 2007 in the second round after the first round failed to give a clear cut majority. The first round, as mentioned in my earlier post had a very high turnout which qualified Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal for the second round to decide who would succeed Jacques Chirac as the next president of the most powerful country in the European Union.

Nicolas Sarkozy meeting US President G.W.Bush after he was elected president of French Republic

The left wing candidates who faced defeat in the first round either voted for Nicolas Sarkozy or remained neutral. In most cases lower and middle income groups along with immigrant citizens voted for Royal. Royal also beat Sarkozy in the conservative state of Bordeaux where opinion polls leaned to a victory for conservative candidates. In the industrial and financial areas of Paris (the capital) and Toulouse (the Airbus city), Royal won majority votes while in Paris, the wealthier areas favoured Sarkozy. They were however, a minority compared to the middle income majority of Paris. Marseilles, which is the second largest French city after Paris, went for Sarkozy. Lyon, the third largest city also followed the Sarkozy way. Geographically most of south-western France including Paris voted for Royal while the rest of France voted Sarkozy.

The stagnation of French economic system for years despite being one of European Union’s largest economies was one of the reasons which caused a victory for Sarkozy. Despite being a moderately pro-US candidate, Sarkozy leaned towards economic reforms as compared to Royal’s inclination towards social reforms. With his conservative French ideals, he looked like the man who could restore France’s national pride and position in Europe. Sarkozy’s stance on anti-France immigrants with his advocacy of deportation of ‘immigrants who did not like France‘ was considered harsh by some groups.

The rejection of EU constitution after the French election threw the destiny of European Union into question and doubts if EU could live on. Sarkozy also created the French Council of the Muslim Faith which was met with criticism from intellectuals as favouring and giving an official status to radical Islamic groups. Anglo-US support however, was biased towards Sarkozy, primarily because of his pro-US stance as mentioned. Royal on the other hand had widespread support of the intellectual spheres of France with around 200 renowned French intellectuals supporting her during the elections despite her small area of experience in international matters.

The 2007 election of France had a lot of international interest and media coverage owing to France having significant position in the European Union both as an economic and military power coupled with its open minded liberal stance on many world issues.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Overview of French Elections of 2007
2. Europe’s Hatred for America - Imaginary or Real?
3. Europe In The Light of Resurgent Russia
4. Europe’s Cultural Suicide by Appeasing Islamists
5. A Brief History of Democracy

• Internationalism , World Politics
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