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Kate Farmer

Cutting to the chase

Alle Stories

Erstellt am: 23. 4. 2012 - 14:46 Uhr

Still all to play for in France

Reality Check: French election results,human rights in Europe, Burma parliament boycott, trial of Iceland's former Prime Minister, protests at Austrian Airlines.

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To look at today's headlines, you'd almost think Sarkozy was down and out, and Marine Le Pen will be the next president of France, such is the hoop-la about the third place achieved by the National Front.

However, if you look a little more closely, it all went very much according to what the polls had predicted. Francois Hollande won, albeit narrowly, taking 28.6% of the vote, with Sarkozy 1.5% behind on 27.1%. Marine Le Pen took 18.1%, which was, indeed, the best showing ever from the National Front, but actually only 1% more than her father achieved in 2003. When you consider the efforts she has made to tone down the rhetoric and appeal to the more mainstream right wing voter, it's a bit less spectacular.

Now, the question is, how will the votes split out when it comes to the run off? For Sarkozy to stand a fighting chance, he will have to attact voters from outside his traditional support base, and as election expert Professor Michael Lewis-Beck said on today's Reality Check, that will mean "making a pact with the devil" to bring in the National Front voters.

However, although there is no love lost between Le Pen and Sarkozy, it's very unlikely that many National Front voters will change their colours and vote socialist, so in the run-off, Sarkozy can be fairly confident of capturing most of her support.

One group that did surprisingly well was the Left Front, an alliance of left and far left groups - who pulled in 11.1%.

Just as the National Front are likely to stand behind Sarkozy, the Left Front will almost certainly stand behind Francois Hollande. That means the king-maker, or rather king-makers, will be the supporters of the centerist Francois Bayrou. They consititute 9.1% of the vote - more than enough to swing the result either way - and that is where the battlefront will be for the next couple of weeks.

On Reality Check today, election expert Professor Michael Lewis-Beck predicts that Hollande will win when it comes to the run-off, but as we all know, a week or two can be a very long time in politics.