French Elections 2007

The sun is trying to come out today and its quite mild, weather reports say we are in for some good weather, so fingers crossed for some sunshine.

With the first round of the French General Election taking place here on the 22nd April 2007 and the declaration probably on Monday 23rd April for the results of the first round, and the announcement of the names of the two candidates entitled to enter the second round, has made it so quiet here, seems this is quite normal during the election months in France.

We are presuming that it will stay quiet until the final vote on Sunday 6th May 2007 when over 44.5 million French voters which go to the ballot to appoint the new President of the Republic.

President Jacques Chirac announced that he would not be seeking re-election, so we wonder who will gain power. Mr Chirac who is now 74, has been in power since 1995 and has been in politics for 45 years.


12 candidates are officially running in the 2007 election,

Mme Ségolène Royal – Socialist party
Mme Arlette Laguiller – Trotskyite Lutte Ouvrière party
Mme Dominique Voynet – Green Party
Mme Marie-George Buffet – Communist Party
Jean-Marie Le Pen – National Front
Frédéric Nihous – the CPNT hunting and fishing party
Gérard Schivardi – Trotskyite Parti des travailleurs
José Bové – Anti-globalisation campaigner
Nicolas Sarkozy – The ruling centre-right UMP
François Bayrou – Centrist UDF party Union for French Democracy
Olivier Besancenot – Trotskyite Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire party
Philippe de Villiers – Far-right MPF party

We await the outcome and wonder what effect this will have on those of us living in France……