France 2012: the official thread

[Tender Branson]

Is this a reference to something ?

It's part of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer%27s_Apprentice

[Tender Branson]

Sarkozy seems to close the gap rather quickly in the 1st round.

CSA and Opinionway have him only 2% behind Hollande now.

Run-off is still 56-44 Hollande, but that can also change quickly.

[Tender Branson]

*please French People don't screw this up don't screw this up please French People*

Yes let's hope they don't elect Hollande. Why is Sarkozy closing the gap all of the sudden?

Because he started campaigning ?

It's probably not the 83% tax on millionaires thing, which is quite popular with a majority of the French, from what I've read.

Maybe it has also to do with the fact that the other leftist dude is taking away blue-collar voters from LePen and Sarkozy gets a few of her supporters as well, with his recent anti-immigration stance.

[Tender Branson]

Sarkozy will be re-elected.

[Tender Branson]

Big gains for Sarkozy in the BVA poll from March 21/22 compared with their March 2/3 poll:

29.5 Hollande (-3.5)
28.0 Sarkozy (+3.0)

54 Hollande (-5)
46 Sarkozy (+5)

Is BVA historically good ?

And a CSA poll has Sarkozy ahead by 30-28, but trailing also by 54-46.

[Tender Branson]

AFAIK, BVA usually favors the left.

Now I'm afraid.

If Sarkozy is at 46% right now and he wins the first round by about 3-5%, how likely is a polling bump to 48-49% ? Then it could be a pretty close election, if the right-wing voters see that he has a chance to win this thing and head to the polls.

[Tender Branson]

From what I've seen on Wikipedia, it seems that CSA had the best 2nd round poll in 2007, while it cannot be said which pollster was the best in the 1st round, because they all overestimated the "old" LePen.

[Tender Branson]

What does GOTV look like in France? Do you guys get calls from party volunteers reminding you to vote? Is there absentee balloting?

Probably.

Here in Austria, I always get stuff like pencils or pocket lighters or something like that including a written form as to why to vote for each party. Parties mostly do this with first time voters. In 2008 for example I got this from the SPÖ, ÖVP and the BZÖ - even though I ended up voting for the Greens.

[Tender Branson]

Sarkozy seems to have settled on 46% right now, unable to break 47%.

Which is what the new Ipsos and IFOP polls say.

[Tender Branson]

IFOP's latest breakdown on how the support goes from the first round candidates to the second round candidates:

Intentions de vote au premier tour en %   François Hollande   Nicolas Sarkozy   Ne se prononcent pas

Jean-Luc Mélenchon    79   5   16
François Hollande    99   –   1
Eva Joly    68   11   21
François Bayrou    32   43   25
Nicolas Sarkozy    2   95   3
Marine Le Pen    31   39   30

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Politique/Actu/Sondage-Ifop-Fiducial-Paris-Match.-La-double-incertitude-385387

Currently, it looks like Sarkozy is slightly winning Bayrou's and LePen's voters, but many would also stay at home.

If he can appeal to them, maybe he can close the gap in round 2.

[Tender Branson]

53-47 in CSA this morning: excruciating, Antonio, isn't it ?

I give up.

I can feel your pain

Remember when Sarkozy was trailing by 63-37 ? These were the good times ...

[Tender Branson]

Can someone of the French posters please translate some of this:

http://www.ifop.com/media/poll/1818-1-study_file.pdf

It's a poll about sex practices among the voters or French political parties.

I only got that FN and Far Left voters have the most sex each month, the most sex partners and the most experience with anal sex.

But some of the other questions I didn't understand.

[Tender Branson]

I had a dream last night in which Sarkozy popped up and the number "48%".

Don't know though if this is from a future poll or the election night result, or nothing at all.

[Tender Branson]

Apparently, a Swedish girl has made a fan video for Melenchon called "Conquer me, Jean-Luc" because when she saw him at a campaign event ahead of 120.000 supporters she fell in love with his charisma ...

http://derstandard.at/1334132456965/Uebernimm-die-Macht-ueber-mich-Jean-Luc-Schwedische-Unterstuetzung-fuer-Melenchon

[Tender Branson]

Yeah, Sarkozy seems to have fallen back again from 46/47% to about 44% recently. And also in the 1st round he seems to be slightly behind. Any reasons for that ?

[Tender Branson]

Yeah, Sarkozy seems to have fallen back again from 46/47% to about 44% recently. And also in the 1st round he seems to be slightly behind. Any reasons for that ?

His campaign has been particularly inaudible these recent times, with the presentation of his official program being an utter flop and his recent nitpicking on unimportant issues like driver's licence. The fact that, the official campaign having begun, all candidates are entitled to the exact same airtime on radio and TV, also prevents him from monopolising attention as he constantly strives to.

Hollande hasn't done much recently, but my impression is that voters are apreciating his constance and his reluctance to change his political positioning and strategy at every occasion as Sarkozy does. He's clearly seen as a reassuring figure and Sarkozy has so far been unable to damage this image.

I've read in my "Standard" newspaper that I subscribe to that because the media has to give every candidate the same airtime now and because there are some crazy candidates in there the media doesn't really want to report about, the media isn't airing that much about the major candidates either compared with previous campaigns. True ?

What about Melenchon ? Do you think he might surprise on election day and get close to 20%, taking votes away from Hollande ? Or do you think he will get close to 20%, yet Hollande still wins ? Or do you think Melenchon will flop ?

[Tender Branson]

Why don't they just mark the name on a piece of paper? Seems like they could save a ton of money in printing costs.

Such a ballot would be disqualified anyway here. And I guess also in France.

[Tender Branson]

Hope for Sarkozy ?

New Ipsos poll shows:

53-47 Hollande

Sarkozy gaining ground with Le Pen and Bayrou voters.

[Tender Branson]

Hope for Sarkozy ?

New Ipsos poll shows:

53-47 Hollande

Sarkozy gaining ground with Le Pen and Bayrou voters.

WHAT

www.ipsos.fr

(Could be margin of error movement though, who knows ...)

[Tender Branson]

If this is not an outlier I'm going to bang my head on a wall until death ensues.

What are the chances that we'll see ANY poll with Sarkozy at 48% this week ?

BTW, has there been any poll with him at 48% since Election 2007 ? Don't think so ...

[Tender Branson]

The only way Sarkozy could win would be if all the polls in France were as spectacularly wrong as they were in the recent election in Alberta!! (ie: incumbent is supposed to lose by 8 points and instead wins by 10 points)...not a chance.

In 2007 as i recall the final numbers for Sarkozy and Royal were exactly what the final polls predicted.

Sarkozy overpolled by about 2%. He polled an average of 55% and got 53%.

[Tender Branson]

The mini-mini-Sarko-poll-bump has now stopped:

54-46 Hollande (new IFOP poll)

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/sondage-hollande-vainqueur-face-%C3%A0-sarkozy-080611570.html

53.5-46.5 Hollande (new BVA poll)

http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2012/05/02/1343055-sondage-hollande-toujours-en-tete.html

[Tender Branson]

Today is the TV debate apparently.

And it's shown on TV5 Europe @ 9pm local time.

Too bad I can't understand French, so watching it is pretty much useless because I won't understand what they are saying or if one of them makes a major gaffe (which will probably not happen anyway because they are no Rick Perrys).

Why isn't the German-French ARTE showing the debate and employing some French-German translators during the debate ? (Checked their schedule, not happening though.)

So, does anyone of the French posters here know a stream that translates the debate into German or English ?

[Tender Branson]

Hmm, when I checked the ARTE teletext in the morning, it said that they won't broadcast the debate.

On their homepage it now says they will broadcast it (maybe only over the Internet, because their TV schedule on their website still says nothing about the debate) ...

And it will have a simultaneos French-German translation:

http://www.arte.tv/de/Praesidentschaftswahl-2012--Chat-und-Debatte-live/6623018.html#comment-516639784

[Tender Branson]

Any streams online?

ARTE (French with German translation)
TV5 Europe

And maybe France24 too.