LeMonde Poll: Populist, Anti-Euro Candidate National Front Candidate Marine Le Pen Moves Ahead of Republican Rival in French Presidential Election Poll

Yeah but here's the thing:

France conducts its elections in two "tours," or rounds. In the first round, a jungle primary, every major and minor party in France runs. In the second tour, usually the next week, the top two finishers face off in a run-off.

The National Front frequently comes out ahead in the first tour in various elections -- but then all non-NF voters vote for the NF opponent in the second tour.

This is even true of Les Republicains, the center-right party (and let me throw quotation marks around "right" party, this being socialist France), who will vote for the PS (Socialist Party) candidate to deny the NF candidate the win, and the PS voters will vote for the hated Republicains to defeat the even-more-hated NF.

This happens all the time. Odds are high that the runoff will in fact be between the NF's Marine Le Pen and Les Republicains' Francois Fillion, but the odds are even higher than Marine Le Pen will then lose badly as all the PS voters and Greens and Communists and every other minor party voter vote for Fillion.

This may say something about public sentiment in France, but it says little about who the next French president will be.

Well, it kind of says the next French president will be Fillion.

posted by Ace at 12:54 PM

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