Sunday the 21st of March, the first round of the French regional elections. If you dont know anything about French Politics, read my explanations from earlier in the week about today's election's importance:
http://FrenchSocialist.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/17/15037/9794
So, the results you ask?
It is - finally - a good night for the Socialists.
The Left (socialists + communists + ecologists) has 40 % nationally. The Right (UMP + UDF) has 34%.
The FN, far-right party, remains very strong at 17%.
The Trotskyists obtain 5%.
It seems that the Trotskyst alliance will NOT be able to reach 10% in any region: it was hoping to reach 10% and therefore go on to the runoff in Ile de France and Nord Pas de Calais, but it seemed they failed.
The FN will go on to the runoff in 17 to 19 of the 22 French regions, and that is even more bad news for UMP.
However, it seems that the UDF - the minority party in the right-wing governement- has lost all its "primaries" with UMP. Indeed, both in Ile de France and in Aquitaine (South West), UDF is third, when it hoped to beat the UMP.
The Socialist Party is leading in many regions, especially Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'Azur, that ist the most hotly contested region. The PS got 35%, UMP 24% and FN 23%.
It seems that the socialists will be able to retain the 8 regions they controled since 1998, and probably gain 2 to 4 (more?) regions next week in the runoff.
The most symbolic region is Poitou-Charentes. The President of the Region for 18 years was Raffarin (the current Prime Minister); he left his post to be prime minister in 2002. Today, the Socialist candidate (a charming woman) got 47% (and 36% for the UMP candidate). If the socialists win the region next week, it will be a major blow to Raffarin's credibility.
What else, what else... The other regions that the PS can win are: Bourgogne, Langedoc-Roussilon, Bretagne (the socialists were ahead today in all three regions), and maybe Rhones-Alpes, the 3rd largest region (it is the region of Lyon), where the UDF-UMP and the PS lists both got 32%.
Of course, in almost all these regions, the FN will remain in the runoff.
The runoff is next week, Sunday the 28th! Who knows, maybe everything will reverse itself.
Good news for the Left at least... Finally...
