The French Election: Part II
Following up on our earlier post, the results of the initial election are in and France will now have a classic choice in the run-off between a female Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, and a male conservative, Nikolas Sarkozy.
We had written earlier about the possiblity of a third-middle way candidacy emerging through Francois Bayou of the Union for French Democracy but Bayrou finished a disappointing third. That means that France will not follow the trend that had been developing in some European nations.
For good analysis of yesterday’s results and the forecast for the coming two weeks, check out
The Guardian's evaluation;
Roger Cohen's column in the International Herald Tribune, and the
Financial Times's John Thornhill.
The excellent Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post also recommends
the German Marshall Fund's blog, written by Amaya Bloch-Laine. Earlier we had also recommended
the Times of London's blog by its correspondent in France, Charles Bremner.
