The French Republic closed out its first binomial elections, today, with the far-right Front National in 4th place, far behind the center-right UMP, the ruling Socialist Party, and a coalition of Leftists.
In the election, citizens chose officials for their local governments and they rejected the FN everywhere, in every single 'département'. After boasting about her party’s ‘number one’ status just a few weeks ago, the FN’s leader, Marine Le Pen, had little to say about the election results, except, “Cherchez l’erreur,” or, in this context, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
The FN had a realistic chance of winning the 'département' of Vaucluse. In Round Two of the election, it had 39.5% of the votes, versus 15.5 % for the UMP and 12.8 % for the Socialists. However, only 4 of the FN’s candidates were elected, compared to 8 for the UMP and 6 for the Socialists.
For one thing, the figures cited in the FN's graphic are all wrong. And it looks like Le Pen was expecting a proportional result from a non-proportional election. Those were her errors.
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Here’s a map of the départements of France with an enlargement of Vaucluse on the left. If you’ve been to Provence in the south of France, you may have stopped in the historic city of Avignon, or admired the beautiful pastoral countryside.
As the map shows, the départements are divided into smaller units known as cantons, or counties. In Vaucluse, the election was really 17 separate county elections, (and, in all of France 2,054 separate county elections.)
Each party on the ballot presented a pair of candidates, or binôme, one male, one female, to guarantee gender parity in the result. To win, candidates needed to have enough votes to meet a minimum requirement of registered voters, a rule designed to prevent anyone from taking office on low turnout.
Each county elected a pair of General Councilors, so that Vaucluse, with its 17 counties, has 34 General Councilors. It’s their responsibility to govern, as a group, at the département level.
In Vaucluse, the Socialists and their coalition allies won in 6 counties. The UMP, and its coalition allies, also won 6 counties. The Front national won 3 counties. And the rightwing extremist Ligue du Sud won 2 counties. In effect, the election was a tie between the Socialists and the UMP, which was broken by awarding the department presidency to the oldest of the Socialist and UMP General Councilors.
Far Right vs. Extreme Right
The rivalry, in this election, between the far right Front national and the extreme right Ligue du Sud is interesting. It traces back to a feud between the FN’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and the Ligue de Sud’s founder, Jacques Bompard, who is the mayor of Orange, a small city of 30,000 people. Three generations of the Le Pen family and the Bompard family, today, continue the feud that began decades ago.
Marine Le Pen always insisted that the FN had nothing to do with the Ligue, which is an alliance of extremist splinter groups like the overtly racist Bloc Identitaire. But last week, in the interim between Round One and Round Two of the election, Marine’s 25 year-old niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, brokered a deal with the Ligue. (Marion is a member of the Assemblee national, representing a district in Vaucluse.)
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The FN and the Ligue were on the Round Two balIot in the two northern counties of Vaucluse. Rather than compete against each other, Marion offered to remove the FN candidate from the ballot in one county, if the Ligue would return the favor in the second county, which includes the city of Orange where Jacques Bompard is mayor. The first part of the deal was completed and the FN candidate was removed from the ballot. In the second county, Jacques Bompard’s son, Yann Bompard, reneged on the deal and refused to stand down.
A few days before Round Two of the election, Marion showed up with her entourage at the weekly City of Orange Farmer’s Market, which is held right in front of the Orange City Hall. She was there to hand out FN campaign leaflets and greet the crowd. Eventually, she and Yann Bompard came face-to-face, there. According to the newsapaper, Le Figaro, hostile words were exchanged.
The Ligue du Sud beat the FN by six votes in the county. That’s how the two northern counties of Vaucluse ended up in the hands of the Ligue.
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The Nationwide Results
The FN captured only 31 of France’s 2054 counties. The UMP was clearly the big winner.
Political Party
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Counties Won
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UMP
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1,197
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Socialists
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609
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Leftist Front
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186
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Front National
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31
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Other
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19
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Modem
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11
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Greens
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1
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The Right (blue) clearly came out of the election ahead of the Left (red.)
Political Party
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Départements Won
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Right
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63
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Left
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30
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The Popular Vote
Political Party
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Round One Vote Total
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Round Two Vote Total
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UMP
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34.6%
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43.2%
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Socialists
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21.5%
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25.1%
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Front National
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25.2%
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22.2%
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Leftist Front
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13.3%
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6.8%
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Modem
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2.0%
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1.8%
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Other
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1.4%
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0.6%
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Greens
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2.0%
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0.2%
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