Royal concedes French election to Sarkozy

[EV_Ares]

France's voter turnout early Sunday was on track to be the highest in decades, according to the Interior Ministry.
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NOTE, look at this writers first line: Can someone tell me what the first line in this writers post means where he says "defeated Socialist I don't like Segolene Royal".......................

Talk about bias.
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PARIS — Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy defeated Socialist I don't like Ségolène Royal in Sunday's presidential election crucial to the direction that an economically ailing France will take for the next five years.
The agencies said the conservative won 53% of the vote compared to 47 for Royal amid massive turnout of 85%. The projections were based on vote counts from representative samples of hundreds of polling stations across the country.

Royal conceded the election shortly after election polls closed at 8 p.m. local time and after polling results showed she had lost.

?I hope that the new president of the republic will be able to accomplish his role in the service of all French people,? she said.

Sarkozy, 52, nicknamed "Sarko," is a pugnacious former interior minister who has told the French they must work harder to pull themselves out of their economic doldrums. He entered today's vote leading in the polls.
Entire article @ USA Today link:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-05-06-france-elections_N.htm

[saracat]

1. Damn.

[iamthebandfanman]

2. crap.

the french are screwed

infact i find it hard to believe he won

she won the first round....


i guess election fraud is global ;)

[Ignacio Upton]

10. Sarkzoy also won the first round

Royal placed second in that round as well.

[BlooInBloo]

17. DUers find it literally *impossible* to blame the electorate.

[papau]

24. the electorate decided to screw themselves so as to stop Muslim immigration and French

culture change.

I expect some of that in the US 08 election as a "bi-lingual" US will be the curse that the GOP will protect us from.

[iamthebandfanman]

34. thats not true

i thought she had won the first round, it was a headline on c-span after the first round. perhaps i just read it wrong.

[dave_p]

41. I think you misread it

She lagged 30-25 even then. It was a bad sign given the other right-wing candidates' votes. It's all horrible.

[ElizabethDC]

3. :(

Not unexpected, but sad nonetheless.

[new101010]

f*&k

g/d it

[Poiuyt]

4. You have to respect that 85% turnout

[Briar]

6. Everyone wants to get rich

the working class votes for conservatives who will betray their interests in the UK and US as well.

[iamthebandfanman]

7. people wanted change

they just choose the wrong person.

same reason people voted for BUsh the first time, simply because they wanted change.

[Briar]

5. This is tragic

they are going down the same crooked road as the US and UK now. Soon there will only be a middle class in France as well, and in reality a huge divide between a minority enriched by the free market and a majority reduced to penury once their work protections have been smashed to enable the unregulated exploitation of labour.

[iamthebandfanman]

9. yup

they just screwed themselves

no doubt about that

[iamthebandfanman]

8. i have a question about their elections

why are there two major general votes ?
instead of just one like there is here?

[RL3AO]

12. The first vote cuts it down to 2 people since there are 8 or 9 partys that get alot of votes

[Wiley50]

11. ES&S ivoteronic Strikes Again. She's made Kerry's mistake n/t

[Kurovski]

14. That could very well be possible.

Thanks to electronic voting, France also gets elections where there is no certainty, just like the US.

[Joanne98]

16. EXACTLY!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

28. Ah, and here we go.

Nobody you don't like ever wins office without cheating, isn't that it?

[frankenforpres]

37. it is pretty disturbing nt

[KittyWampus]

40. Point being, as long as electronic voting occurs there is no way to know. And it's incumbent

on governments to prove their voting systems are secure, not the other way around.

There is zero reason to accept any election result that includes numbers from electronic voting.

[ButterflyBlood]

43. So if Royal had won, would you feel the same way here?

I agree there are concerns about electronic voting, but it's possible to bring these to light without automatically assuming every election result we don't like was rigged.

[Robbien]

13. Poor France. Wait till the culture shock sets in

The greedy elite are salivating at the door eager to grab up all the newly privatizing opportunities in France.

[Joanne98]

15. She shouldn't have conceded! It's the voting machines stupid!

You would think after watching the FARCE the US elections have become, LW candidates would have a FOUL PLAY speech all ready to go. Gore conceded BAD! Kerry conceded BAD BAD! Hasn't anybody been paying attention?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

23. Were the voting machines rigging the polls leading up to the election, too? n/t

[Wiley50]

25. No. But just as here, the news media reports what they want to report

the media worldwide is tainted

[woo me with science]

27. Didn't you know?

Every time the wrong person wins, the vote was obviously rigged by Karl Rove.

[Posteritatis]

31. Y'know, sometimes liberal candidates *do* legitimately get defeated in elections... (nt)

[Joanne98]

35. I been watching this shit 4 years now. He's just another thief to me!

[Adsos Letter]

18. Interesting...

Does anyone know when Sarkozy actually assumes the post? I wonder what effect this election will have on how the French decide to use that Carrier Group they have sitting in the Gulf. Forces available for use against iran may have just increased a bit; maybe not. Hmmmm....

[Laughing Mirror]

26. May 16 he moves into the Elysée, the presidential palace

Then all the fun begins.

[pink-o]

19. Oh, man, that sucks!

I am getting on a plane in 3 hours to Paris. I was hoping for some good news when I landed.

Big Bummer. I bet the neocons are creaming themselves.

[JCMach1]

20. This was about the young people of France... for many the 35hr work week is an albatross

That holds their wages down... They get paid less AND they can't work more than 35hr.

Also, the Socialists shot themselves in the foot too many times...

[dave_p]

42. It's the pay that's the albatross

Nobody wants to work more hours. We're talking France. There's a life to be had.

Unemployment's more of an albatross. And fewer employed working longer housr doesn't help that.

[MADem]

21. I was watching the Channel 24 coverage, thanks to CSPAN....

I have a sneaking and sick suspicion that "Sarko" is gonna destroy La Marseillaise--his supporters seem to be using the anthem like BushCo uses God Bless America. I also thought his acceptance speech sounded (a bit scarily) like "Ah'm a uniter, notta divider" only with better grammar.

I hope I'm wrong...

On edit: I also think the voters will regret this decision, but I think it's the same xenophobic impulse (they're a-comin' across the Rio Grand-dee, and they're a-gonna take our JERBS!!!) that helped BushCo get within cheating range...that said, I think this guy, odious as it seems, won it on the level. He had a six point (at least) advantage, and it's hard to cheat at that margin.

[rockymountaindem]

29. I wouldn't worry about the anthem

From what I can tell, it's a popular ballad at many political rallies on all sides.

[MADem]

30. I didn't go for the fists in the air and the angry expressions.

And there are riots going on in Paris right now; doesn't bode well, does it?

[rockymountaindem]

36. I think the rioting was expected, and who knows how bad it will be

As far as the anthem goes again, raised fists and angry faces should be expected there too. The lyrics are literally blood-soaked.

[MADem]

38. I know the lyrics, it just seemed, well...OTT, if you know what I mean.

The whole acceptance speech business looked like a GOP rally...

[papau]

22. "Sarkozy defeated Socialist I don't like Ségolène Royal" - phoned in to minimum wage transcriber?

Or was it the standard conversation with overseas job contractors and their employees that never got reviewed on its way back to electronic publishing?

Funny! :-) yet sad as I know that the US media works the same way - but with better proofreaders.

[stirlingsliver]

32. Possible Vote Fraud?

This is devastating news.

Is it possible that there has been vote fraud in France?

I would not put it past * and Cheney to engineer a massive vote fraud in France.

Does anyone know whether France uses paper ballots? Do they use Diebold?

[MADem]

39. Six point margin, at least? Highly unlikely. Ya gotta cheat at well under five...

If you can get it to three points, it's a piece of cake!

The xenophobes had a better Get Out the Vote machine...that's what it looks like, anyway.

[ButterflyBlood]

44. Oh yeah. Karl Rove has the connections to rig a French election too.

Look, this guy is from the same party as Chirac. Not exactly Bush's best friend.

[uppityperson]

33. That line is gone now, must've been a typo.