Les elections françaises

Cultural Lesson #10: French Elections

As a Political Science major and news junkie, I am really quite lucky to be in France to witness the presidential elections which occur once every five years. I have learned a lot about the political atmosphere and the voting process through conversations with my host family and French friends, information from news sources, and lessons from one of my French courses at Accent Français.

The system of voting seems a little archaic in comparison to the American system. The Sunday of the premier tour, the French go to le bureau de vote where they are assigned to vote. They show their identity card and they go into l'isoloir (the voting booth) with many slips of paper with the candidates names written on them. Each voter gets an envelope in which they place their choice of candidate, leaving them to dispose of the other slips in the manner they choose (they throw them away, stuff them in their pockets, etc.). The envelope gets placed in l'urne (a box which holds the votes), the voter signs an electoral list, and that's it! When the voting process is over, the votes are hand-counted. In the case that none of the candidates gets a majority (over 50%) of the votes, there is a deuxième tour two weeks later (today!). The candidates for today are Sarkozy (the incumbent) and Hollande.

The actual voting process is definitely different, but I think there's something to be said about simplicity. At least you don't end up with dead pets voting (shout out to my home state of Illinois) or technical errors in the vote count. Another difference is a type of absentee voting, voter par correspondance, which allows an absentee voter to have someone else physically vote for them. Voter par procuration is what we would consider to be normal absentee voting.

The elections today will very well shape the economic and international role of France. The fate of the economy is definitely the biggest issue here. Supporters of Hollande look at the economic failure of the United States as reasoning to back their candidate, and supporters of Sarkozy look at the economic failure of Greece and Spain as reasoning to back theirs. Another big issue which is tied to this is immigration. Sarkozy maintains that stemming immigration into France would safeguard jobs for French people in a country where the unemployment level is nearly 10% and reduce strain on the welfare programs which are so numerous (well, in comparison to the US) in France. Hollande believes that immigration when it is legal is not a damper to the prosperity of France.

The election results are tallied quite quickly and there is no lame-duck period as we have in the United States. Keep your eyes on the news as France prepares to welcome back Sarkozy or welcome anew Hollande.