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Socialist Francois Hollande wins French presidency

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Class172

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Francois Hollande has won the French elections to become president after voting closed at 20:00 tonight. Here is the BBC News article.

Thoughts?
 
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More importantly it goes to show how bad the British political system is when only some 18% of the eligable people voted in the recent elections yet some 80% of French people voted in the presendency elections.
 

WestCoast

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According to everyone's favourite rag (;)), Iain Duncan Smith reckons that French immigrants will now "swarm" Britain.

"London is already one of the largest French cities in Europe and I think an awful lot of French people will want to come to London."

The capital is often referred to as France’s sixth city due to its huge expatriate population, including more than 70,000 French voters who were courted by Mr Hollande on a campaign trip in February.

Estate agents in London are already reporting increased interest in properties from French clients.

Hmmm...
 

Oswyntail

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The Eurozone was already in deep doodah (basically, it's unworkable as it stands), but this and the Greek result are going to send it into a terminal spiral. I suspect, though, that M. Hollande will be a bit like the late lamented T. Blair, in that he will adopt most of the outgoing President's policies.
 

Ivo

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Isn't saying "France's Sixth City" a bit too specific? Where would be 2/3/4/5?

Having checked on Google, different sources quote different locations. Even our newspapers don't seem sure on which of Lyon and Marseille is #2.

On a more serious note though, I had expected this - but I don't think it was the best decision by a significant margin. As Stephen says, this is a serious wake-up call for the rest of the continent.
 

ainsworth74

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More importantly it goes to show how bad the British political system is when only some 18% of the eligable people voted in the recent elections yet some 80% of French people voted in the presendency elections.

I'm not convinced you can compare local council elections with a national general election...

I think I'm with Oswyntail on this one, the Eurozone was (and is) in serious trouble and with this change of leadership in France and the results of the Greek elections I think this might well end up being the straw that broke the camels back.
 

Schnellzug

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Indeed, what was it, about 80% turnout. Perhaps there are a few lessons that our Politicians might like to look at, although on the other hand of course why should they want to, as they're perfectly content claiming to "represent the People" on about 35% of the Vote.
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I'm not convinced you can compare local council elections with a national general election...

No, but even General elections don't get much bigger turnout, do they. What will it take our Politicians to realise that the People don't believe in our system or our Politicians any more?
 

ainsworth74

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Indeed, what was it, about 80% turnout. Perhaps there are a few lessons that our Politicians might like to look at

Such as?

No, but even General elections don't get much bigger turnout, do they.

Hmm true.

Interestingly these low turnouts are a pretty recent phenomenon one that has only come about since the last Labour government. Prior to that turnout was always somewhere in the region of 70-80%, in 1997 it was 71% (having been 77% in 1992) then promptly collapsed in 2001 to 59% recovering to 61% in 2005 and then 65% in 2010. So it's only in the last twenty years that turnouts have fallen to really low levels.
 

CC 72100

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After his inauguration, he travelled to Berlin to meet with Angela Merkel - only for his plane to be struck by lightning. (This after getting drenched.)

Maybe the relationship between Merkel and Hollande will be electrifying?! :lol:
 
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