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Socialist Party

The Right’s Dominance of France

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

The story of the 2012 French presidential election is quite  interesting. Right-wing incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy entered the election  deeply unpopular. Opinion polls consistently showed him losing by around  20%.

France’s presidential system has two rounds. In the first round,  everybody can be a candidate. The top two winners of the first round  move to a second round run-off.

As election day approached, Sarkozy’s deficit continually shrunk.   Opinion polls just before the first round showed Sarkozy losing by low  double-digits. As the campaign for the second round began, they showed  him behind by high single-digits.

Sarkozy ended up losing by 3.2%. That’s a pretty steep drop-off from the polls that showed him behind by 20%.

More below.