So the first round of votes just finished and here are the results (I put their political position in parentheses for those that do not know) :

François Hollande - Parti Socialiste - 28.63% (socialist left-wing party)
Nicolas Sarkozy - Union pour un Mouvement Populaire - 27.13% (capitalist banker right wing party)
Marine Le Pen - Front National - 17.90% (extremist right wing nationalist party)
Jean-Luc Mélenchon - Front de Gauche - 11.10% (extremist left wing communist party)
François Beyrou - Mouvement Démocrate - 9.13% (centrist party)
Eva Joly - Les Verts - 2.31% ( left wing ecological party)
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan - Debout La Republique - 1.79%
Philippe Poutou - Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste - 1.15%


I voted for Beyrou and am saddened to see he did not make it to the 3rd or 4th place...

So now there's only Sarkozy and Hollande in the race, but we have to take into account all of the votes from the other parties.

Right wing voters (sarkozy): 27.13% + 17.90% + 1.79% = 46.82%
Left wing voters (hollande): 28.63% + 11.10% + 2.31% + 1.15% = 43.19%

I have no clue how the centrists (myself included) will vote but I predict a Sarkozy win... Of course there will be much heated debate between now and the 2nd roud of elections and predictions are rarely spot on. Hollande could receive 7% of the centrist votes and Sarkozy 2% and Hollande would win but it will be a very close call no matter what happens...

Philippe Poutou is my favorite one, but he's not in the second round, so i'd like to see François Hollande as the new president of france, that would be better for the world. 8)

i had never heard of poutou until i saw the results. Is it a communist party ? it seems so from the "anticapitaliste" part of their party name.


and yeah, i'm leaning towards Hollande myself. But i want to see how the televised debate goes.

The televised debate between Sarkozy and Hollande will start in 15mins... for anyone that speaks french it should play here :

http://bretagne.france3.fr/info/suivez- ... 13402.html

i'll edit this post with my thoughts after it's finished

Hollande 4tw!!!

So I actually ended up voting for Sarkozy on saturday because even though I was torn between the two and I do not like Sarkozy much as a person, I did not agree excessive spending and social policies would help dig us out of this current crisis. Yes you do have to spend to boost GDP and aggregate demand, but you also have to cut spending in many areas if you do not want to experience a hell hole of inflation. You can look at Spain and Greece, who spent so much money they could not afford in their social policies that it really bit them in the arse afterwards and that drove me to my decision. That, and Hollande wants to eradicate all nuclear power in France to appeal to the environmentalists which is absolutely retarded as nuclear energy is an industry which is doing very well, is very cost efficient, and is creating energy for us and by us. Shutting it down will only increase unemployment and our dependence on foreign oil.


However, Hollande as indeed won as were my expectations. I look forward to seeing some changes in France as we have had UMP presidents for four consecutive terms now and hopefully Hollande will pleasantly  surprise me in driving France's economy forward. On the other hand, if he fucks up the economy even worse, I won't be there to experience it and therefore godspeed France, hope you make it out in one piece.

So I actually ended up voting for Sarkozy on saturday because even though I was torn between the two and I do not like Sarkozy much as a person, I did not agree excessive spending and social policies would help dig us out of this current crisis. Yes you do have to spend to boost GDP and aggregate demand, but you also have to cut spending in many areas if you do not want to experience a hell hole of inflation.

Hmm, I'm conflicted on that. A lot say you can't save yourself out of a economic depression, you need to grow out of it. Governments need to spend in economic down cycles and save during economic peaks (at least that's what Keynes said). Unfortunately they usually spend during peaks.
I don't think inflation is a big problem right now, Europe needs growth.

Still, I'm not an economist, and even economists don't agree, so...

And I don't think Hollande will make such a big break with current policy as he made out to believe. I look forward to see how he's gonna deal with Merkel.

Sarkozy? what a bitch!
..gtfo m0ther fuckEr

Finally rid of Sarkozy, Francois Hollande is the new president.

heard he's a socialist that's all I really know, and I can't say I approve of socialists.