Hollande edges Sarkozy in French vote, Le Pen surges
FRANCE: Far-rightist Marine Le Pen threw France’s presidential
race wide open on Sunday by polling nearly 19 percent in the first round
- votes that may tip a runoff between Socialist favorite Francois
Hollande and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy. Hollande led
Sarkozy by 28.2 percent to 27.0 percent with more than four fifths of
votes counted, the Interior Ministry said, meaning the two will meet
head-to-head in a decider on May 6 that may be closer than pundits had
been expected.
Le Pen’s record score of 18.6 percent was the sensation of the night,
beating her father’s 2002 result and outpolling hard leftist Jean-Luc
Melenchon in fourth place on 10.9 percent. Centrist Francois Bayrou
finished fifth on 9.2 percent.
Hollande, 57, told cheering supporters he was best placed to lead
France towards change and declared: “My final duty, and I know I’m being
watched from beyond our borders, is to put Europe back on the path of
growth and employment.”
Sarkozy, who has led the world’s fifth largest economy for five
years, responded defiantly to his setback - the first time in the
54-year history of the present electoral system that a sitting president
seeking re-election had been beaten into second place in the first
round.
In a rousing speech, he challenged the Socialist to three television
debates over the next two weeks instead of the customary one, and vowed
in response to Le Pen’s surge to tighten border controls, stop factories
leaving France, make work pay and defend law and order.
Two opinion polls taken during Sunday’s voting by the IPSOS and Ifop
institutes suggested the Socialist would beat the incumbent by 54 to 46
percent in the second round. But much yet depends on how each appeals to
supporters of Le Pen and others.
“Sarkozy is going to be torn between campaigning in the middle ground
and campaigning on the right. He’ll have to reach out to the right
between the rounds and so he’ll lose the centre,” said Stephane Rozes of
the CAP think-tank.
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