ANDY: You may have heard that France has elected a new president. From the perspective of a very casual observer it was interesting to compare their political process to ours. Like the US, they have a multi-party system with two major parties that dominate – The Union Movement Populaire and the Socialist Party. The UMP is conservative and nationalistic while the Socialist Party obviously holds the liberal point of view. There are roughly 20 political parties (all of which have members that hold some form of political office) including the New Center, French Communists, The Green Party, Arise the Republic, National Front, etc. Getting my information only from the BBC and a couple of curling friends, it seems like the exact same issues and rhetoric are here in France as at home. It’s the same fights and arguments, and people seem to be just as divided and cynical as in the states. They even have an up-and-coming highly visible party, The National Front, which is similar to the Tea Party and had a strong showing in the election.

Their voting process is interesting. I am not sure how they are selected but they have a preliminary election with 10 candidates from 10 different parties. This happened on Sunday, April 22nd. If one candidate gets 50% of the votes it’s all over and they are declared the winner. If no one takes the majority, then the top two candidates face off two weeks later, which was last Sunday. Hollande and Sarkozy took 28% and 26% respectively in this first round and Marine La Pen, the National Front candidate, took about 19%. I think I heard that the top vote getter in the first round has always won the second round but there was a lot of speculation around which way La Pen’s supporters would lean. Since she is rather far right there was a good chance that those votes would go to Sarkozy. This was not the case and in the end Hollande won the second round with 52%.

What I found really intriguing was the way election day was covered on TV. Adrienne and I took a trip to Provence for the weekend so we were out and about but when we stopped for dinner we were able to see some of the television coverage. We ate outside at a little pizza joint and could see the TV through the doorway, along with a group of a dozen other people huddled around. At about 7:50 I peaked in the door and saw a countdown on the screen with news anchors doing their thing. Oh, I forgot to mention that all elections are single-race affairs here. There are elections all of the time and each one is for a different office. The elections for legislators will be held in June, for example. I imagine this would be exhausting. We are able to have everyone campaign in one season and then it is over for a bit. Here there is always some kind of political campaigning going on. So, the only thing on the ballot last Sunday was the vote for president – and over 80% of eligible voters cast ballots. In the US we have all of the projections from exit polls and states turning red and blue which makes for an entire evening of entertainment. What I saw here was something more like New Year’s Eve in Times Square. The polls closed at 6:00 and the clock on the TV counted down to 8:00 when the winner was announced.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen so I watched the countdown and with 5 seconds to go they started shuffling the pictures of Sarkozy and Hollande to add to the suspense. 5… 4… 3… 2… 1 and the screen settled on the picture of Hollande, earning 52% of the votes – and that was it! It was quite dramatic and fun. I almost wish we were in Paris because they showed hordes of people at Bastille celebrating, which would have been great to experience first hand.

I read afterwards that Sarkozy called Hollande at 6:30 to concede, so I am not sure how much real suspense there was in the whole production but the presentation was quite flashy. Hollande takes office on the 15th of the month, only 10 days after he was elected! I like that. Why should an outgoing leader have almost two entire months before vacating his position? You lost. Now get out.

So, even with the differences of tradition and process it is interesting how well their problems mimic ours. All of the arguments over border control, tax hikes vs. cuts, gay marriage, social security, etc., are the same. And these arguments are dominated by the two major parties, right/left, with a few crazies in for good measure (one guy’s platform was based on colonizing Mars). Maybe someday we will have this all figured out and get along but I guess it is comforting, in a way, knowing that the US is not the only place struggling with these issues.