Sarkozy wins

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After the games there was a barbacue at Jean-Luc’s house for the whole team. The main event, however, was the announcement of the presidential election results between Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy, the two presidential candidates left for the run-off election that was held today.

In a nutshell, Segolene represents a socialist politics, wanting to reinforce social security, unemployment and other social programs in France. Sarkowzy is a much more pro-America, pro-Bush, pro-capitalism candidate, who also speaks strongly about controlling immigration and strengthening the French borders. He talks about ‘selective’ immigration reform which would limit/control which immigrants would be allowed into the country. To generalize, Segolene represents the left while Sarkowzy is more right-leaning (though the political lines in France are not drawn exactly the same as they are in the US—I have yet to fully understand their politics).

It was the largest turnout at the polls in many years, with 84 % of the people voting. Am I right that in the US the turnout for presidential elections is normally below fifty percent?? In the end Sarkowzy won with 53% of the vote, a landslide victory in political election terms.

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