French Election Results: Sarko vs. Sego!

After an election which saw historic numbers of French take to the polls, Sarkozy and Royal ended up on top and will face off in two weeks in the final 6 May election.

For days, pollsters had been debating the final result, a Sarkozy-Royal-Bayrou showdown, but in the end the two major party candidates came out on top.

However, in all of this, Bayrou, the centrist, has leverage since it is the votes that he took in that the other two will be chasing after in the final round of the election.

Yesterday, the head of MEDEF (which is like an association of major companies in France) came to speak at EM Lyon and she said that despite the lack of real debate in the elections, she is optimistic about the future of France.

We shall see in the next few days if they do schedule a debate.

Sarkozy ran a very neo-con campaign for the first round but I assume that he will be moderating his views and running from the center in the second round.

---

LINKS

Check out these articles in the Financial Times (soon, before they go offline)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/199947fe-f200-11db-b5b6-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=4e612cca-6707-11da-a650-0000779e2340,print=yes.html
France chooses: mother of the nation or paterfamiliasBy Gideon Rachman

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d879ab2e-f1ff-11db-b5b6-000b5df10621.html
France deserves a contest of ideas

OL makes its six straight -- but the malaise continues.

OL won its sixth straight league championship in the French soccer league, but they did it not by winning on Sunday, but by playing to a tie just as I saw them do last Wednesday.

I had hoped that they would win on Wednesday at home so that we fans could all spill out onto the field to celebrate. Perhaps they're saving it for this weekend's home game.

After winning the league, the players also spray-paint their hair red and blue (colors of OL) and play like that (believe it or not).

In the center of the city near where I live, on the Hotel de Ville mayor's office they have hoisted a celebratory flag: Thank you OL, Six times Champion, Six Times the Best.

Just to keep drunk revellers from desecrating the fountain in the middle of Place des Terreaux, they have put up a wire fence around it. Just as they did during the World Cup last summer.

French Elections -- Tomorrow! (Sunday)

The French campaigns for President, held every seven years, came to a close yesterday and everything goes on the line tomorrow, Sunday. It's a twelve-horse race (yes, twelve candidates!) and the top two vote-getters go into a run-off two weeks later, unless one single candidate gets a majority of the vote in the first round.

In the last election, Chirac and far-right candidate LePen made it through to the second round, with LePen edging out the highly-favored Socialist candidate Jospin. This time, there are three candidates out in front -- Sarkozy, Royal, Bayrou -- and LePen waiting in the wings.

No one knows who's going to come out on top, with so many voters undecided these few days before the election.

As in Japan, campaign posters are posted on assigned signboards in each quarter, assigned equally to each candidate. None of the signposts along the highway that you see in the U.S.: like Japan, this election assures equal space and opportunity to each candidate, so long as they gather 500 signatures for their candidacy.

The photos I've included here are of the candidates whose posters have not been defaced. Others like LePen and even Sarkozy (who criticized immigrants in the suburbs of Paris two years ago during the riots) have had their posters defaced or torn down by angry citizens during the dead of night ... I say that because I imagine, just as anywhere else in the world, tearing down political posters is probably a punishable offence ...

Can't wait for the result and the next stage of the campaign ...!

+++++++++++++++++++++++

(***DISCLAIMER: This is not an endorsement of any of these campaigns ... just recording what I saw ...)

Russian chocolate Alyonka

My Russian colleague brought back this souvenir from his Easter vacation in Russia. Apparently, this brand of chocolate is a Russian icon -- and hasn't been bought out by the large multi-national conglomerates.

The chocolate itself is quite good, but the design is what's so charming about it. Apparently the design hasn't changed since the 1930s. It must be reassuring for the Russians to see that some things haven't changed amidst all the upheavals during the post-glastnost years.

Spring is here in Lyon!

What a difference two weeks can make. And am I happy that spring is here! Not only for the weather, but for all the greenery that's sprung up over the last few weeks.

When I finished my tests during the first week of April, the weather was still grey and the mornings nippy. But now, as we enter the last part of April, outside the sky is blue and everybody is out and about. I just came back from Place Bellecour in the heart of Lyon and it was full with people shopping and walking leisurely through the streets with family or friends.

Outside, too, the cafes and even the restaurants in the Merciere district (where all the famous bouchons, or bistros, are located) have set up tables on the sidewalk. All the people who have been hiding at home, then, have made it a point to be seen sipping a drink outside or enjoying a meal on a cool spring evening.

It's absolutely perfect right now, neither too hot nor too cool, and I think that I've going to really enjoy these next two months (before the heat of summer drives us all underground).