French Socialist Party candidate Segolene Royal and her right-wing opponent, Nicolas "Sarko the American" Sarkozy, won the first round French presidential election. Sarkozy won 30.5% of the vote to Royal's 26% Centrist candidate Francois Bayrou picked up 18.6% of the vote. Far right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, who criticized the "non-Frenchness" of Sarkozy, whose parents came from Hungary, picked up 10.4% of the vote.
Sarkozy has also been called a "little French Hitler" by our French sources, many of whom have served in intelligence and military jobs.
Although the neocon media, which is in Sarkozy's corner, is claiming that Sarkozy is the front-runner and that he will now steer to the center to pick up the support of Bayrou voters, the French election is not that simplistic. First of all, like questionable elections in the United States, Italy, Mexico, and other countries where the use of electronic voting machines resulted in skewed, similar use of electronic machines have already resulted in charges of fraud, in favor of Sarkozy, in the first round French election. With such fraud already taking place, some French observers are already predicting that Sarkozy will win through electronic voting machine fraud -- a factor that has favored neo-cons in other elections around the world. Philippe de Villiers, a far-right Catholic nationalist presidential candidate who voted in Herbier in the Vendees, called the electronic voting machine he used a "cheating machine."
He's back!
Exit polls showed that voters who opted for Bayrou did so because thet thought Sarkozy was too right-wing. It is doubtful they would switch to Sarkozy in the second round even with centrist messages coming from the "little French Hitler." Similarly, many Le Pen voters did not vote for Sarkozy because they considered him too "non French" and opposed his close ties to Israel, the Samuel Huntington school of a "Clash of Civilizations," and the American Republican Party. It is also doubtful that they will change their stance and vote for Sarkozy. This means that in the second round, a number of Bayrou supporters will break for Royal, even if Bayrou endorses Sarkozy. Le Pen supporters are more likely to remain at home, although those that do vote would hardly embrace a candidate they consider to be a "foreigner." Some Le Pen voters will also likely break for Royal.
With this arithmetic, if Royal picks up a half of Bayrou votes and the 9.5% who voted for Trotskyite, Communist, and Green candidates, that increases her percentage to 43.5% compared to Sarkozy's 44%, if the other half of Bayrou votes go to Sarkozy. That leaves the 10.4% who voted for Le Pen. In the end, it is doubtful they will break for "Sarko the American" of Hungarian roots. If any turn out to vote, it appears likely they will vote for the candidate who is "more French," especially if Le Pen withholds an endorsement for Sarkozy. But with such a close election, the neocons are already busy calculating how they will manipulate the electronic voting machines. Another neocon contrivance may end up as the next president of a country through computerized election engineering.
Wayne Masden Report |
