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French Elections: Hollande beats Sarkozy in
first round
Monday April 23, 2012 08:54:24 AM,
Agencies
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 France votes as Sarkozy's fate hangs in
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Paris:
Socialist challenger Francois Hollande stamped his authority on
the French presidential race Sunday, beating Nicolas Sarkozy in
the first round of polling in which the far right also made major
gains.
As expected, Hollande and the wounded right-wing incumbent will
now face off in a May 6 run-off for the presidency, but the big
surprise of the night was the record score for anti-immigrant,
anti-EU flag-bearer Marine Le Pen.
Hollande won between 28 and 29 percent of the vote in the first
round, to Sarkozy's 25.5 to 27, according to estimates compiled
from ballot samples by several polling agencies and obtained by
AFP from multiple sources.
"Firstly, I am tonight in the lead among the candidates," he
declared before supporters in his rural political stronghold of
Tulle. "I am today the best placed candidate to become the next
French president.
"The second major lesson to draw from this election - and this is
undeniable - is that the first round was a punishment and a
rejection of the incumbent," he said, to cheers.
Le Pen, won between 18 and 20
percent - her National Front party's best ever showing - and a
result which complicated forecasts for the second round, as she is
unlikely to urge her supporters to back either frontrunner.
Sarkozy is the only incumbent to lose a first round-vote in modern
French history and opponents of all stripes queued up to pronounce
his political obituary in live broadcasts and speeches to
supporters.
Marine Le Pen's father, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen,
refused to say who he would vote for now that his daughter has
been eliminated, but added: "I think Sarkozy is finished."
His daughter went further, hitting out at both sides and boasting
of having exploded the two-party duopoly of power, at a remarkably
triumphant rally for a candidate who went out at the first hurdle.
"The battle of France has just begun," she told a wildly cheering
crowd.
"Nothing will be as it was before ... the people of France have
invited themselves to the table of the elite."
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