Who really is forcing the change in France
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Hollande Is Half the Story
Martin A. Schain
May 3, 2012
Earlier this month, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, the incumbent failed to take the lead in the first round of a French presidential election. Now, before the second round, scheduled for Sunday, surveys indicate that President Nicolas Sarkozy will be beaten handily by François Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate. So handily, in fact, that the French press has already moved on to speculating about the legislative elections that will take place in June.
Chances are that the outcome in June will be determined by the same issues that dominated the first round of voting in the presidential election, which have dominated the second round as well. So it is telling that the far-right National Front, headed by Marine Le Pen, doubled its vote share in the first round compared with 2007. And much of the increase came from voters who had picked Sarkozy last time, according to estimates from exit polls. That arithmetic helped Hollande, a lower-profile figure who was a member of the group of Socialists nurtured by François Mitterrand during his long presidency, nose ahead in the race.
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If support for Le Pen's party holds constant between now and June, the National Front will move to the second round of legislative balloting in 353 of the 577 National Assembly electoral districts. In other words, it will be a true national party. It will then be in a position similar to that of the French Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s and will try to push the governing coalition's policy orientation much further to the populist right. French populism will be daunting for Europe as well. Sarkozy has already reacted to the National Front surge by emphasizing law and border issues in an attempt to pick off votes. He has talked about putting greater pressure on Italy and Spain to harden their sections of the Schengen border, as well as a more muscular action at the EU level if they do not. He has also supported more aggressive European economic stimulus, as well as a financial transaction tax, a clear challenge to German priorities. But since Sarkozy was responsible for negotiating the fiscal austerity pact with Germany last March, he has been more reluctant to criticize it.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137613/martin-a-schain/hollande-is-half-the-story