French Elections

Now that the United Nations is out of the way, I can move onto some current events. I will probably come back to the informative posts later, to review the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, International Council of the Red Cross or other organizations that are relevant to understanding politics today. In the meantime, on to the juicy stuff!

Today I'm going to talk a bit about the French elections. The French electoral system requires that if a candidate fails to win an absolute majority in the first round of elections, it means that there will be a runoff between the top two candidates. Since France's multiparty system rarely produces an absolute winner, the runoff is usually the deciding factor. Sometimes the parties in the runoff may come as a surprise, such as in the last election where a shocked France found itself voting for Jacques Chirac over the far right extremist Jean LePen, who had somehow made it through the first round of voting without compromising on or apologizing for his positions, which most French find racist, overtly nationalist and controversial. The French were so shocked that there were actually protests and riots over an election they themselves had voted in! Only in France, right?

The sitting president is Jacques Chirac, who has been at the head of the French politic for 12 years. The long terms of French presidents make their reigns into dynasties, and Chirac's will face an uncertain legacy. Though praised for somewhat dismantling the crippling bureaucracy of French socialism, he failed to secure a "Yes" vote for his pet project, the European Constitution, and failed to integrate thousands of African immigrants into French society, ending in riots that plagued French suburbia in 2005. Chirac announced his retirement this year and will pass the reigns of France to his successor after this week's elections.