Yesterday finished off the second round of voting in the municipal elections. After the first round, a general consensus in the press was a slight victory for the left, and a more jaded view of Francois Bayrou’s Mouvement Democratique (MoDem). Since last week, more of the press (especially the Canard with it’s headline “Bayrou opens a center…commerciale”) has shed light on how much empty wind Modem has, especially because even if they win, there is no guarantee that they would have sided with the larger left or right parties.
After this second round, the left’s win was clear. Several former UMP cities, such as Rouen, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Caen, Amiensm and Rheims all tilted to the left. Only a tiny amount of towns within France voted for Modem, among them Pau, a small one in Brittany, and one in South-Central France. While the Parti Socialiste won many new mayorships and territory, the personages were not a large difference. No where was the race as tight as Marseille, where the city (much like Paris) was split geographically in a line, with the UMP majority on one side of town, and the PS on the other. Unlike Paris, which tilted much farther to the left, Marseille barely has a UMP majority. This is still dangerous for the UMP because of, what the newspaper Liberation calls, “the will of the people for change not only with the current political situation, but with the Presidency as well.” According to the New York Times, “4 of the 22 ministers who were candidates from Sarkozy’s government failed to win office in the municpals,” (3/17).
This is not exactly like a Midterm elections moment such as what occurred in the United States in 2006, but it is close. Because of this, the senators which will now make up the French Senate will more likely be left-leaning. This puts pressure on the Sarkozy government to tone down it’s rhetoric and plans.
In the end, this change of events was good, though because the second round of voting only had a 23% turn out rate, it’s legitimacy as a complete barometer of public opinion seems to not hold completely correct. Though it was by and large called by PS officials as a vote of no confidence for Sarkozy’s crazy American-styled image of money, at the same time it was the first of the cues that Sarkozy has started to react to calls for change. More trips to farms and the French rust-belt, less bling-bling. But perhaps this is not all that could save his presidency, because it will be a change in action, a change in making sure that he isn’t alienating all of the people who voted for him, and the others who expect him to be the President of the entire French people, not just his imagined demographic.
