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Sarkozy win - truly a mandate! (voting statistics)
Nicolas Sarkozy won the women's vote and fared well among blue-collar workers, even though his rival for the French presidency was a woman and a Socialist. Experts said Sarkozy took working-class votes from the left by playing up his tough cop image and by pounding away at the theme that he believes in rewarding hard work. "The main attraction among workers were the security-immigration duo, which works, and the values of hard work: He put the emphasis on increasing purchasing power," said Frederic Dabi, a pollster with Ifop.According to the Ipsos poll, Sarkozy cruised in his traditional electoral base: 82 percent of small business owners, and 67 percent of farmers voted for him. Befitting a conservative, he won 61 percent of votes by those over age 61, and 68 percent among voters 70 or older. Royal's best showing was among 18- to 24-year-olds, but Sarkozy tallied 57 percent among the 25- to 34-year-old tranche. The Ipsos poll of 3,609 adults was conducted by telephone Sunday. The agency did not provide a margin of error, but it should be about plus or minus 1.6 percentage point for a survey of that size. Official figures showed Sarkozy won France's one-time industrial heartland in the north, which had not voted for a rightist presidential candidate since Charles de Gaulle in 1965. Sarkozy even tallied nearly 44 percent of the vote in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris, where a wave of rioting erupted in late 2005 while he was interior minister and infuriated many there by calling troublemakers "scum." Strikingly, he captured 52 percent of the women's vote against 48 percent for Royal, indicating the campaign transcended gender issues and became a choice between ideas. In the campaign, Sarkozy dared to attack the status quo with calls to do away with inheritance tax on small and medium estates and cut the number of public sector workers. He also evoked issues of national identity and immigration that were once the stomping ground of extreme-right nationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen. Sarkozy plans to put big reforms before parliament in July. One would make overtime pay tax-free to encourage people to work more. Another would put in place tougher sentencing for repeat offenders, and a third would toughen the criteria for immigrants trying to bring their families to France. Sarkozy is as critical of Iran's nuclear program as is the U.S., and he has chided the French press for its anti-American tone. But he has called the Iraq invasion a mistake and says the Bush administration should do more on global warming. Merely hundreds of rioters Monday night, Socialist leader finally appeals for calm The leader of France's defeated Socialists appealed for calm Tuesday after a second night of post-election violence left cars burned and store windows smashed. "To all those who can hear me, I ask them to immediately stop all this behavior," Socialist Party chief Francois Hollande said Tuesday on RTL radio. "We are in a republic, where universal suffrage is the only law we know. There can be disappointment, there can be anger, there can be frustration. But the only way to react is to take up your ballots, not other weapons," he said. Late Monday night, several hundred people massed again at the Place de la Bastille in Paris, breaking shop windows, starting street fires and igniting a handful of cars. Riot police dispersed them, arresting about 100 people. In Nantes in western France, hundreds gathered again Monday night, with a few dozen hurling beer bottles and other projectiles at police cordons. Police responded with tear gas, arresting several people. Public buildings were also damaged. Minor incidents were also reported in Toulouse in southern France. Posted by: trailing wife 2007-05-08 |
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