April 23, 2012

Socialist Francois Hollande received the most votes in France’s presidential election on April 22, forcing a second-round run-off on May 6. Hollande took 28.5 percent of the vote, compared with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 27.1 percent. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen won 18.2 percent of the vote, with the rest divided among seven other candidates. French political experts described Le Pen’s vote as “a stunning result for the far right.” (They regard her National Front party as anti-establishment, anti-European Union (EU), and anti-immigrant; critics accuse the party of inciting Islamophobia.) The election was the first in which a French president running for re-election failed to win the first round since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

President Sarkozy campaigned on a promise to reduce France’s large budget deficit and to tax people who leave the country for tax reasons. He has also threatened to pull out of the EU passport-free zone unless other member countries do more to curb immigration from non-European countries. If Sarkozy loses the run-off, he will become the first president not to win a second term since Valery Giscard d’Estaing in 1981.

Nicolas Sarkozy (© Thibault Camus, AFP/Getty Images)

Francois Hollande wishes to refocus the response to the eurozone debt crisis on growth and jobs rather than austerity. He has promised to raise taxes on big corporations and on people earning more than 1 million euros ($1.4 million) a year. He also proposes to raise the minimum wage, hire more teachers, and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers. If elected, Hollande would be France’s first left wing president since Francois Mitterrand, who held office between 1981 and 1995.

Additional World Book articles:

• De Gaul, Charles
• Left wing
• Right wing
• Crisis in the Eurozone (a special report)
• Economics 2011 (Back in Time article)
• France 1958 (Back in Time article)
• France 2011 (Back in Time article)