Massive Turnout in France Reflects Desire To Address Economic, International Issues
By Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, April 23, 2007
PARIS, April 22 -- French voters Sunday chose ruling party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Ségolène Royal to compete in the French presidential runoff in two weeks, with a massive voter turnout backing a generational shift of the country's leadership.
Sarkozy, the tough-talking former interior minister and candidate of the Union for a Popular Movement party, won 31 percent of the vote, and Royal, who has cast herself as a maternal protector vying to be France's first female president, received 26 percent, with nearly all of the ballots counted.
Eighty-four percent of the 44.5 million eligible voters cast ballots -- an apparent record in a first-round presidential ballot in France -- reflecting the urgency of an election that centered on the country's fear of economic decline at home and diminishing influence abroad. The huge turnout also underscored voter enthusiasm for the more modern, personality-driven, American-style campaigns to replace outgoing two-term President Jacques Chirac.
The election results indicate that French voters want a clear choice in the decisive May 6 runoff, which will be a classic right-left showdown pitting the hard-line, pro-business, pro-American Sarkozy, 52, against Royal, 53, who advocates greater spending for social welfare programs and supports more multipolar global relations. Royal, a mother of four, is the first woman to advance to the second round in a French presidential race.
"I want to tell all the French who are scared, who are scared of the future, who feel fragile, vulnerable, who find life harder and harder, I want to tell them that I want to protect them," Sarkozy said in a victory speech to supporters at a concert hall near the Champs Elysees. The comments clearly were aimed at voters who tell pollsters they find Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, too tough and divisive.
Royal, speaking to boisterous supporters in her voting district town of Melle in southwestern France, said she wanted to lead "the fight for change, so that France can stand up again, to get optimism back." In a clear swipe at Sarkozy -- though she didn't name him -- Royal said she wanted to "change France without brutalizing it."
"Together, we are going to put the smile back on the face of our country, and conquer the demons of depression and decline," Royal said.
The campaign was dominated by voter calls for change as the domestic economy and job market have stagnated and France's international financial and diplomatic influence is waning. Voters said they fear encroaching globalization and rising immigration, which they see as threatening their traditional way of life and the cradle-to-grave benefits of the state's social welfare system.
Both Sarkozy and Royal pledged major changes to shake France from its doldrums, and both promise a less imperial presidency that is more in touch with the people. Whoever wins will be the first French president from the baby boomer generation, heralding what voters hope will be a more modern style at the Elysee Palace.
Twelve candidates competed in Sunday's election. François Bayrou, 55, of the small Union for French Democracy party, who had billed himself as a centrist between Sarkozy and Royal, came in third with 18 percent of the vote, and Jean-Marie Le Pen, 78, a hard-right anti-immigration nationalist, ranked fourth with 11 percent, according to preliminary results.
The remaining 17 percent was split among eight minor political groups, including three Trotskyist political parties, the French Communist Party and the ecologically minded Greens.
Going into the final week of the campaign, pollsters said that as many as 40 percent of likely voters were undecided, leaving the election an unpredictable horse race to the end.
Many Royal supporters on Sunday said they were wary of repeating the mistake they made in the 2002 election, when leftists split their first-round votes among so many small parties that it siphoned critical votes away from the Socialist candidate, typically the left's standard-bearer, and opened the door for a narrow second-place victory by Le Pen, who faced Chirac in the final round.
Sarkozy and Royal have been the front-runners in opinion surveys since last summer, but the intense media scrutiny and long campaign have left both bruised going into the final two weeks.
Royal, who favors white or red suits, captured the French desire for modernity and change, and she was an instant media darling. She steamrolled the men in her party to capture the Socialist nomination, but soon ran into serious problems with misstatements and gaffes -- particularly on foreign policy issues -- that continue to fuel voter concern about her competence.
"Her goal is to rejuvenate our democracy and give power back to the people," said Daisy B. Stover, a 56-year-old Paris film technician who said she voted for Royal, at least partly because she fears Sarkozy's hard-line stances. "He's a wacko."
Sarkozy, on the other hand, has struggled to soften his image; as he said in his recently updated biography, he worries that some people don't think he has "a human side."
"He'll bring social and political change, being from a new generation," said Monique Maletras, 64, an artist voting at a school in north Paris, who was impressed with Royal early on but then changed her mind. "Unfortunately she turned out to be incompetent. . . . She contradicts herself all the time."
With smaller parties nipping at Royal's heels from the left, and Le Pen challenging Sarkozy from the right, both candidates were compelled to drift to the margins to protect their bases, which left a large opening on the center that was filled by a surprising late-in-the-game surge by Bayrou, a politician, horse breeder and former teacher and who attracted many voters in the center who were disillusioned with the left-right battles that have been a hallmark of French politics for 50 years.
Nonetheless, many said they were concerned about Bayrou's ability to govern, and in recent weeks his support withered as voters returned to their parties and started looking forward to a May 6 slugfest. Political analysts said they expect a ferocious battle between Royal and Sarkozy to win over Bayrou's backers, who could be the deciding factor in the final round.
Researcher Corinne Gavard contributed to this report.
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