Sarkozy, Le Pen Gain as French Punish Hollande in Local Election

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- French voters vented their anger at President Francois Hollande in local elections, benefiting former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP and Marine Le Pen’s National Front.

The UMP won control of between 66 and 71 departments, compared with between 27 and 35 for Hollande’s Socialists, who previously had 61, according to projections by pollsters CSA and Ifop. The anti-immigrant, anti-euro National Front gained elected officials across the country, though it failed to take power in any one district, according to its own projections.

“With their vote, the French have expressed their anger, their fatigue with life that is too difficult: unemployment, taxes and a high cost of living,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls said late Sunday in Paris.

The French economy has barely grown since Hollande took the presidency in May 2012 and jobless claims have risen and remain near a record high of 3.5 million. France’s tax burden is the highest in the euro area. Sarkozy said he takes the vote as a sign his party can take back power in 2017.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-29/sarkozy-le-pen-gain-as-french-punish-hollande-in-local-election

[geek tragedy]

1. Sarkozy again?

Man, if the Socialists can't hold their own vs Sarkozy and Le Pen, they have stuff to figure out.

[MADem]

2. Dumb and dumber. Le Pen, especially--that racist stuff is sweeping Europe. It's scary. nt

[Yo_Mama]

3. The National Front didn't win much

CSA estimates that the UMP won between 1,125 and 1,155 cantons, the Socialists and their allies won between 746 and 776 and the National Front won as many as 54. It was unclear Sunday evening whether the result would give the Front power in any one department.

Seems like a protest vote against the current regime.

[rpannier]

4. Part of the problem is Hollande has come across as utterly incompetant

He has terrible media presence, he doesn't seem to have an answer for anything, his PM has been compared to Tony Blair (for his economic and foreign policy attitudes)
He's no Mitterand that is for sure

[MADem]

6. I have to say, the buzzing around Paris on the scooter and sending his security man for

breakfast croissants, and the way he dumped his last "First Lady" didn't impress me much. There's a right way and a wrong way to end a relationship, and he came off like a cad. Even though, as I understand, the woman who was dumped wasn't terribly adored--there are classy ways and not-so-classy ways to kiss the day goodbye!

I guess his ratings weren't helped by THAT mess, either! It was all so...UNSAVORY!

For those who don't know what we're talking about:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2824635/Hollande-renews-love-affair-Julie-Gayet-photographs-appearing-s-staying-presidential-palace.html

And I'm guessing THIS didn't help, either:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/03/francois-hollande-a-lying-socialist-who-doesnt-like-the-poor-says-ex-girlfriend-in-kiss-and-tell-memoir/

François Hollande is a cold, cynical cheat and a Socialist who “doesn’t like the poor,” according to a devastating memoir by a vengeful Valérie Trierweiler, the French president’s spurned ex-girlfriend.

Depicted as icy, obsessively ambitious and out of his depth, Mr. Hollande is picked apart in Thank You For This Moment, published Thursday, a “kiss-and-tell” account of their nine-year relationship and her 18 months at the Elysée Palace.

The president’s aides said he was kept totally in the dark about its release and was “appalled” at extracts leaked Wednesday, including one recounting a desperate fight to stop Ms. Trierweiler taking sleeping pills in the presidential bedroom after his affair with Julie Gayet, the actress, hit the headlines. ... “He presents himself as the man who doesn’t like the rich. In reality, the president doesn’t like the poor,” writes Ms. Trierweiler, who is from a gritty neighbourhood in Angers, west of Paris. Her father is an invalid and her mother worked as cashier at an ice rink.

“This man, a left-winger, calls them in private ‘the toothless ones’ and is very pleased with his little joke,” she claims.

I will say, though, there are probably a lot of fellows who would like to know his secret--the women get younger and younger, and they're, each one, way more attractive than he is! His precarious hold on the Presidency can't be that much of a draw, can it?

[DallasNE]

5. Germany Dominates The Euro Zone

So other countries, such as France, cannot really go their own way. Greece is another example of that. Still, Hollande has been an ineffective leader and that will bite you every time.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. UMP 67 councils, Socialists 34 (was 40 and 61); FN no councils, but at least 60 seats

French local elections: Conservatives triumph over left

Paris and Lyon, France's two biggest cities, did not take part in Sunday's election.
...
Bastions of the Socialists like the Nord department around Lille swung to the right, as did President Hollande's own fiefdom of the Correze in central France.

However, as ever in France's two-round elections, voters from left and right united in round two to keep the FN from power, the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris reports.
...
The FN made especially strong gains in Pas-de-Calais, in the far north, and Gard, in the south.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32114520

[Pooka Fey]

8. FN didn't win anywhere. Why spin the story as a LePen win?

The anti-immigrant, anti-euro National Front gained elected officials across the country, though it failed to take power in any one district, according to its own projections.

Can't be denied however that the traditional Left wing voter - i.e. the Proletariat/Workers, have been abandoned by the traditional Left and so have transferred their allegiance to the Populist party - the FN. Nevertheless, France mostly refuses to hold their own citizens: the workers, building trades, and factory workers, store clerks, salaried employees, agricultural workers, etc. in contempt and chooses to educate rather than condemn. The results are that the Socialist party is the big loser, but the FN isn't winning. The UMP win is due to their alliance with the Center party UDI.