Today is the last day of the French legislative election.
As the Presidential election was in 2 rounds, so also is the of the Assemblee Nationale, the final round being today.
Results are predicted to give Sarkosy a very substantial majority and there are fears that the Parti Socialiste will have one of its worst historic results.
More later as the results come in.
Some analysis ahead of the results here:
Sydney Morning Herald, BBC, The Australian, Washington Times
And if you can read French an excellent analysis (with historical comparisons) in Le Monde and as well as this article.
More comment when there are some early indications of the result. Already, however, it is clear that the result will not be good for the French socialists, who will have a real job to do to reinvent themselves after the election.
Results start to come in BBC, Guardian
It now seems the Parti Socialiste is doing quite well, having gained a number of seats in the Parliament, which allows it to be a substantial opposition to the Government.
There is though a general consensus that there needs to be a process of 'rebuilding' in the Parti Socialiste, though exactly what form that takes remains to be seen, with at least a risk of a period of bitter infighting between the followers of a handful of political heavyweights.
Final results are now in
See the BBC site for the full details of the composition of the Assemblee Nationale with 07 compared to 02.
It's a little difficult to work out what's going on as the French system means there are lots of small groupings along side thw two big parties.
It seems the socialists have gained around 40 seats. The communists have lost a number of seats and therefore lose their status as a 'party group' in the Assembly.
The right wing UMP lost approx 40 seats.
Lesson - the importance of expectation management (especially difficult in a two round election). As a consequence the party that lost the election feels like it has won it as the first round predicted a wipeout for the Left and the party that actually won it feels like it's lost it...... Well that's politics for you.
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Nice blog, good articles, Craig. Does this mean bad news for French gays?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind comments.
ReplyDeleteAs for the meaning of the elections for LGBT candidates there was nothing specifically homophobic in the policies of the right at the election but the socialists had incorporated the acceptance of same sex marriage into their manifesto.
So that won't happen and there are a couple of other things in terms of pusshing forward the LGBT agenda (education, trans agenda, international human rights etc) that we can expect less from the right.
Also with such a clear majority there definitely won't be another election until 5 years time.
It is however the case that there won't be significant progress on LGBT issues until there is a socialist led Government.