French presidential election, 2007

Presidential elections were held in France on 21 and 22 April 2007 to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France (and ''ex officio'' Co-Prince of Andorra) for a five-year term. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 5 and 6 May 2007 between the two leading candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Sarkozy was elected with 53% of the vote.

Sarkozy and Royal both represented a generational change. Both main candidates were born after World War II, along with the first to have seen adulthood under the Fifth Republic, and the first not to have been in politics under Charles de Gaulle.

Schedule

*22 February 2007: The decree convoking the election was published in the Journal officiel de la République française.
*16 March 2007 – 18:00 (16:00 UTC): Deadline for candidates to have obtained the 500 sponsors from elected officials in at least 30 different departments or overseas territories which are required to run for president.
*19 March 2007 – 17:30 (15:30 UTC): Official candidate list was announced by the Constitutional Council: 12 candidates.
*9 April 2007: Official campaign started.
*20 April 2007: Official campaign ended.
*21 April 2007: First round of voting started in Saint Pierre and Miquelon at 8 am local time (10:00 UTC) and subsequently took place in Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, French Polynesia, and in voting offices in embassies and consulates in the Americas.
*22 April 2007: First round of voting took place in Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, Réunion, Mayotte, Metropolitan France, and in voting offices in embassies and consulates in Oceania, Asia, Africa and Europe – the last polling stations closed in the large cities of Metropolitan France at 8 pm local time (18:00 UTC) and publication of the first exit polls were allowed immediately after they closed.
*25 April 2007: Official results of the first round announced.
*27 April 2007: Official candidate list for second round announced.
*2 May 2007 – 21:00 (19:00 UTC): Nationally televised debate between the two candidates.
*5 May 2007: Second round of voting started in Saint Pierre and Miquelon at 8 am local time (10:00 UTC) and subsequently took place in Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, French Polynesia, and in voting offices in embassies and consulates in the Americas.
*6 May 2007: Second round of voting took place in Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, Réunion, Mayotte, Metropolitan France, and in voting offices in embassies and consulates in Oceania, Asia, Africa and Europe – the last polling stations closed in the large cities of Metropolitan France at 8 pm local time (18:00 UTC) and publication of the first exit polls were allowed immediately after they closed.
*10 May 2007: Official results of the second round announced.
*16 May 2007 – Midnight (22:00 UTC): Expiration of the term of president Jacques Chirac.

Electoral system

For the first time in a presidential election, electronic voting was introduced in some areas, having been authorised in 2004. They were introduced in only 82 of 36,000 voting districts, and were criticised by a number of people, both on the left and on the right. A petition against them has also been made (see Wikinews:Electronic voting disputed in France).

Using the three colours of the national flag (blue, white, and red) on electoral advertisements or partisan documentation was prohibited by electoral regulations. Ségolène Royal contended that the book ''Ensemble'' ("together") published by Nicolas Sarkozy, whose cover is blue, white and red, is effectively an electoral partisan documentation and should be covered by this prohibition.

Candidates

Requirements

:''Reference
Constitutional Council, FAQ
'

The requirements for being successfully nominated as a candidate are defined by the organic law of 6 November 1962.

All candidates must be of French nationality and at least 23 years old (the same requirement as for the candidates to the National Assembly).

Candidates must obtain signatures from 500 elected officials (mayors, members of Parliament, elected representatives) supporting their candidacy. These signatures from elected officials (informally known in French as ''parrainages'', but legally known as "presentations") must be from at least 30 different departments or overseas territories, and no more than 10 percent can be from any individual department. A presentation from an elected official does not imply the official supports the policies of the candidate, but rather that this official considers the candidate to be a serious candidate.

Candidates must also submit a statement with details of their personal assets.

The Constitutional Council published the official candidate list on 20 March 2007. The candidates are listed in a randomised order. This order will be used for the official campaign: thus, posters for Olivier Besancenot will always be on the No. 1 board, those for Marie-George Buffet on the No. 2 board, etc., regardless of where in France the boards are located.

There were a total of 12 candidates for the 2007 election.

Leading candidates

Four candidates consistently registered over 10% in the opinion polls and were regarded as having a reasonable chance of reaching the second round.
* Nicolas Sarkozy was nominated by the Union for a Popular Movement on 14 January 2007. He is the leader of the UMP and was Interior Minister until stepping down to focus on his campaign on 26 March 2007.
* Ségolène Royal was selected by the Socialist Party on 17 November 2006 to be the party's candidate for the election. She won 60.6% of the votes in a ballot of party members to choose their candidate, against 20.8% for Dominique Strauss-Kahn and 18.5% for Laurent Fabius. She is the first woman to represent a major French party in a presidential contest.
* François Bayrou was nominated by the centrist Union for French Democracy (UDF) on 2 December 2006.
*Jean-Marie Le Pen ran for the National Front, a far-right party which promotes policies of strong law enforcement, economic protectionism and strong measures to control immigration. As during previous presidential campaigns, Le Pen raised the question of whether he would be able to obtain the necessary 500 signatures on a number of occasions, which he claims is the result of pressure placed on elected officials by the major parties to support their own candidate (he has often claimed, during past elections, that "political elites" have sabotaged his campaigns); however, on 14 March 2007 his party said that he had obtained the necessary signatures.

Image: Flickr_-_europeanpeoplesparty_-_EPP_Summit_October_2010_%28105%29.jpg, Nicolas Sarkozy candidate of the Union for a Popular Movement
Image:Meeting Royal 2007 02 06 n11.jpg, Ségolène Royal candidate of the Socialist Party
Image:Bayrou-thiez-17-07-2006-054.jpg, François Bayrou candidate of the Union for French Democracy
Image:Jean-Marie Le Pen 479834203 5030701e77 o.jpg, Jean-Marie Le Pen candidate of the National Front

Other candidates

These were the eight other candidates who obtained the required 500 signatures from elected officials to endorse their candidacy.

* Olivier Besancenot: Revolutionary Communist League
* José Bové: Leftist environmentalist who ran on an alter-globalisation platform
* Marie-George Buffet: Communist Party
* Arlette Laguiller: Workers' Struggle
* Frédéric Nihous: Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Tradition Party
* Gérard Schivardi: styled himself as "the mayors' candidate", supported by the Workers' Party
* Philippe de Villiers: president of the Movement for France party ran on a traditionalist Catholic and eurosceptic platform, and with a firm anti-Islamic message.
* Dominique Voynet: Green Party.

Image:Olivier Besancenot - Airbus public demonstration in Toulouse 0346 2007-03-06.jpg, Olivier Besancenot
Image:José Bové - Meeting in Toulouse for the 2007 French presidential election 0188 2007-04-18 cropped.jpg, José Bové
Image:Marie-George Buffet cropped.jpg, Marie-George Buffet
Image:Arlette Laguiller - Meeting in Toulouse for the 2007 French presidential election 0021 2007-04-18.jpg, Arlette Laguiller
Image:Frédéric Nihous - Langon 2007 - p1 cropped.jpg, Frédéric Nihous
Image:Schivardi écharpe tricolore Bureau Mailhac.jpg, Gérard Schivardi
Image:Philippe de Villiers - Meeting in Toulouse for the 2007 French presidential election 0165 2007-04-16 cropped.jpg, Philippe de Villiers
Image:Dominique Voynet - Anti-EPR demonstration in Toulouse 0025 2007-03-17 cropped.jpg, Dominique Voynet

Confirmed non-candidates

*President Jacques Chirac announced on 11 March 2007 that he would not be standing for another term as president. It had been rumoured that President Chirac was considering running for a third term, following statements he made at the beginning of 2007, including his New Year's Address on 31 December 2006, and subsequent speeches which contained robust comments on international policy and detailed national policy proposals with a suggested five-year timetable. In March, Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy. There was no provision at the time in the Constitution of 1958 specifying a limited number of terms, though a third term would have been unprecedented under the Fifth Republic.
* Christine Boutin announced that she would not be a candidate for the election and pledged her support for Nicolas Sarkozy (source: France 2 news, 2 December 2006).
* Rachid Kaci, member of the UMP and President of the group Free Right (la Droite Libre), announced his withdrawal as candidate and also pledged to support Nicolas Sarkozy on 21 December 2006 during a UMP public Forum.
*MRC chairman Jean-Pierre Chevènement announced on 10 December 2006 that he would not be running, and that his movement would back Ségolène Royal in return for an electoral agreement in the 2007 general election.
*Candidate for the Radical Party, Christiane Taubira in the 2002 election, confirmed that she would not be running following an electoral agreement between her party and the Socialist Party. The Left Radicals in return will support Ségolène Royal.
*Nicolas Hulot, television presenter and environmental activist, was widely considered to be a possible candidate following the positive media and public reaction to his recent book and Environmental Charter. On 3 January 2007 ''Le Figaro'' newspaper reported that supporters of Hulot had begun gathering signatures to mount a campaign and a website, was created to generate support. On 22 January he announced that he will not be a candidate.
*Corinne Lepage, environmentalist politician and activist, withdrew her candidacy in favour of Bayrou on 10 March 2007.
* Roland Castro, architect and "utopian left" activist, withdrew his candidacy on 12 March 2007.
* Édouard Fillias: Alternative Libérale, a new French libertarian party, withdrew his candidacy on 13 March 2007 in favour of Bayrou.
* Antoine Waechter: Independent Ecological Movement, withdrew his candidacy on 14 March 2007

Did not get enough endorsements

* Yves-Marie Adeline
* Yves Aubry
* Soheib Bencheikh
* Jacques Cheminade
* Nicolas Dupont-Aignan: former member of Union for a Popular Movement, announced on RTL radio on 10 January 2007 that he had obtained approximately 310 promises for signatures to validate his candidacy and intended to stand on a ' sovereigntist' platform, against further European integration through the EU.
* France Gamerre: Génération Écologie
* Nicolas Miguet : right-wing businessman, press publisher and tax protester, he was accused of running a scam in order to obtain the 500 endorsements. He was arrested and freed on bail. Announced that he would support François Bayrou.
* Rachid Nekkaz

Campaign

The election campaign raised a number of issues:
* Jobs and unemployment – France long had an unemployment rate officially close to 10%, down to below 9% in 2007. Employment, and employment conditions, are a perennial concern for the French (see Economy of France and Poverty in France).
* European disunity – The presidential election followed the EU Constitution rejection vote in 2005, which threw into question the future direction of the European Union.
* International politics – A majority in France approved of President Jacques Chirac's opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States. Sarkozy was considered as pro-Washington, while Royal, although seen as probably also in line with Washington, is thought to be more moderate. Left-wing intellectual Régis Debray's metaphor was that Sarkozy was like a direct flight to Washington, D.C., while Royal was a flight to Washington with a stop-off in Oslo, referring to her European inclinations.Régis Debray
La Coupe de l'Elysée 2007
''Le Monde'', 23 February 2007 Chirac's public opposition to the Iraq War should however be relativised, as he toned down his criticisms after a while. Furthermore, he involved French troops in Afghanistan and agreed, immediately after the 11 September 2001 attacks, on increased cooperation between Western intelligence services, materialised by the creation of Alliance Base in the centre of Paris, a joint international Counterterrorist Intelligence Centre.
* Law and order – During the 2002 campaign, law and order came to the forefront, especially with respect to unruly youths from poor suburbs. In late 2005, in some of these suburbs significant unrest erupted. Again, law and order was a forefront issue, mainstream candidates tackled the problem of reining in unruly youngsters. Sarkozy proposed measures for harsher criminal procedure for youngsters, while Royal proposed to send unruly youths to centres under military discipline. Sarkozy's attitude was widely criticised on the left, and also by the UMP minister Azouz Begag, who defected his party to support Bayrou following Sarkozy's management of the autumn 2005 crisis.
* Immigration – The issue of immigration in France split France. The number of deportations more than doubled since 2002, with Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior from 2002 to 2004 and 2005 to 2007. Sarkozy declared in April 2006 that immigrants who did not "like France" should "leave it." Opponents have labelled Sarkozy's attitude as repressive, in particular towards illegal immigrants, materialised by numerous police raids against illegal aliens, strongly opposed by the left. The main problem concerns illegal immigrants (''sans-papiers'', "without documents") who cannot obtain work permits without proper immigration documents and are therefore mostly found in the informal economy – construction, restaurants, etc. Although the right of foreigners to vote was a classic claim of the left-wing, it was not an important issue of the campaign. On the other hand, Sarkozy declared himself in favour of affirmative action which was widely contested both on the left and on the right, on grounds that it would favour ''communautarisme'' – separation of communities – along ethnic lines, and that it means taking into account ethnic alleged memberships in statistics, which is legally prohibited and not done by the INSEE. Left-wingers argued in favour of social actions not based on ethnic factors, but on geographical situation and equality of territory; however, the traditional Universalism of the French republicans has also been criticised on the left-wing by some intellectuals supporting a middle-ground between Republican universalism and multiculturalism.Étienne Balibar
«Royal, pour faire échec à la droite»
'' Libération'', 6 April 2007
* The Far Right – The National Front, long dismissed as a fringe party, stunned many when its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, reached the second round of the 2002 elections. Le Pen's points of focus – law and order and immigration – were later taken up by politicians such as Sarkozy. Le Pen on 12 April 2007 criticised Sarkozy for being Hungarian and asked if he should run for the president of Hungary. Le Pen was 79 years old, the same age which Charles de Gaulle was when he stepped down from the presidency in 1969. Le Pen's approval rating in opinion polls markedly increased after France's riots in 2005. As a counterweight, the Left and the cultural elite and athletes (like Lilian Thuram) rose to oppose Sarkozy's response to the riots.
* Anti-neoliberalism and Disarray of left-wing parties – During the 2002 presidential election, a number of left-wing candidates ran for office, which, according to commentators, was one reason for the defeat of Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin. Jospin blamed in particular Jean-Pierre Chevènement's candidacy, as well as Christiane Taubira's one. However, others commentators have criticised Jospin's attitude and the policies of the PS, which account, according to them, for the low score of Jospin. Inheritor of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), the PS is historically social-democrat, while the French Communist Party (PCF) is a governmental party, which participated in Jospin's ''Gauche plurielle'' (Plural Lefts) government (with ministers such as Jean-Claude Gayssot, etc.). In this sense, the PCF does not consider itself a far-left party, to the contrary of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) or Workers' Struggle (LO). But the PCF does consider itself part of the "anti-liberal" coalition, which opposed the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE). Inside the French Socialist Party (PS, ''Parti socialiste'') itself, Laurent Fabius headed the minority who opposed the treaty. However, the victory of the "No" during the May 2005 referendum on the TCE hasn't been exploited yet by the left parties or organisations which supported it. The main topic of the non-PS left-wings was to try to choose a single candidate for the "anti-liberal" Left, which opposes neo-liberalism. This eventually failed, and the far-left was represented by four competing candidates, Marie-George Buffet, Olivier Besancenot, José Bové and Arlette Laguiller. "
* High-level political scandals and disrepute – A number of scandals tainted various French politicians, including president Jacques Chirac (see Corruption scandals in the Paris region), with some, such as former prime minister Alain Juppé, being convicted. The recent Clearstream affair had been exposed as a case of forgery and denunciations involved such major politicians from the ruling UMP coalition.
* Feminism – France's first woman president had the opportunity to be elected in 2007 – Ségolène Royal, a Socialist, ran following her selection on 16 November 2006 as the candidate for the Socialist Party.
* Environment – The environmental party, the Greens, had been low in the polls, but Nicolas Hulot, a presenter of an environmentally themed television show, became very popular and had considered running. Many parties, from the left to the right, were interested in his support.
* Labour – Both Royal and Sarkozy called for " labour" to be respected as a value, although the meaning of this was somewhat open to very different interpretations.
* Housing and homelessness. Following political actions by th
Enfants de Don Quichotte NGO
who set up tents for homeless people by the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris and elsewhere, in December 2006, the problem of homelessness was at the centre of the campaign for a period of time. The death of veteran campaigner Abbé Pierre a short time afterward increased the focus on the issue.
* Religion and communautarisme. Sarkozy has opposed both the left-wing and Chirac on the issue of religions, adopting a stance critical of state secularism and of the 1905 law on Separation of the State and the Church. His creation of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) was strongly criticised as giving an official voice to the more radical sectors of organised Islam.
*Bayrou's candidacy. François Bayrou, leader of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) centre-right party, decided to present himself as a centrist candidate. He opposed in particular the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party led by Sarkozy. Critics have pointed-out that Bayrou and his party had voted along with the UMP parliamentary majority on nearly all cases. Bayrou's trend is generally considered to be the inheritor of the Christian-Democrat MRP.
*Candidate Gérard Schivardi was banned from calling himself ''le candidat des maires'' ("the candidate of the mayors"). The 2 April 2007 judicial injunction was requested by the Association of French Mayors, who feared that the candidate might be perceived as officially endorsed by the country's mayors. As a result, he was unable to use the 25 million electoral flyers already printed, which he claims will cost his campaign €300,000. Thus he styled himself as "the candidates of mayors" or "candidate of some mayors" ("''de'' ''maires"'' rather than "''des'' ''maires"'' – see United Nations Security Council Resolution 242#Semantic dispute for an analogy of this difference between ''de'' and ''des'').
*François Bayrou proposed the idea of organising a "debate over the Internet" between the four leading candidates, in order to circumvent the obligation of TV and radio channels to provide equal times to all twelve candidates. However, Nicolas Sarkozy was opposed to such a debate, believing it would be illegal.

Officially proposed policies

*Europe
**''Ségolène Royal'' (Socialist Party) proposed a referendum on a new European treaty for 2009. She declared she would request guarantees on the social policies followed by the European Union, in particular by reaching an agreement with German chancellor Angela Merkel on the controversial role of the European Central Bank – contrary to the U.S Federal Reserve, the ECB has an ''exclusive role'' to counter inflation. Royal stated she would negotiate with European partners in order to include economic growth and employment as aims within the ECB's policies.)Europe : le programme des candidats
(Royal), ''Le Monde'', 13 March 2007
**'' Nicolas Sarkozy'' (Union for a Popular Movement) proposed a simplified European treaty which would be ratified by the French Parliament instead of being submitted to a referendum. He also declared himself against the rule of unanimity in European decisions and opposed the accession of Turkey to the European Union.Europe : le programme des candidats
(Sarkozy)''Le Monde'', 13 March 2007 Furthermore, he said he would argue in favour of revaluing the euro, increasing the European defence budget and creating a European Foreign Affairs Minister.Les principales propositions de Nicolas Sarkozy
, ''Le Monde'', 16 March 2007
*International policies
**''Royal'' proposed a new EU-led peace proposal in the Middle East.Royal, Sarkozy and Bayrou: The policies
''BBC
...