Council of Conservative Citizens

Sarkozy, who ran on a Le-Pen like platform, comes in first place with over 30% of the vote in a twelve candidate open primary for French President. Sarkozy is a member of Chirac’s Popular Movement Party, but is far to the right of Chirac. Sarkozy is favored to win the run-off against a socialist candidate who came in second. Sarkozy, Le Pen, and right wing Movement for France candidate Villiers took 43.9% of the vote all together. The socialist party, along with four other feuding communist parties took 33%. Centrist and evironmental parties took the other 23.1%.

This is a dramatic shift from the 2002 election when four communists together scored 14%, four socialist candidates together scored 29%, and Chirac won as a centrist with only 20%. This would suggest that the socialists and communists have lost a quarter of their support, while the right wing vote has nearly doubled.

Election results on Wikipedia.

• French Front National surges after Sarkozy’s move to the left.
• “European voters punish the left” – cries BBC.
• Major victory in Hungary. Nation swings hard to the right. International media goes ballistic!
• Shock victory for right-wing secessionist parties in Flanders!
• Rasmussen: Tea Party Movement more popular than Republican Party