i've been waiting for this forever.

two big notes.

1) RECORD TURNOUT!  it's already past 75% and it's widely expected to fall between 84-87%!  amazing! for those who read french, check out libe's notebook: http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/polit iques/elections2007/249151.FR.php

2) EXIT POLLS AND EARLY RETURNS ARE ALREADY AVAILABLE!  http://letemps.ch/
It's been moving around quite a bit, but sego's been stable around 25%.  le pen, strangely has fluctuated between 11-19%, sarko between 25-30% and bayrou between 13-19%.  so clearly these are just to get a sense of how things are falling minute by minute in advance of the first official results (to be released at 2pm eastern).

i think its interesting that you discount sarkozy right off the bat..

i think when you listen to sarkozy speak, rather than read the AP stories where he is practically presented as an extremist who set the paris suburbs on fire, what he says really makes a lot of sense and he seems far more intelligent and capable than royal....he has ideas..

on a recent trip i got to see sarkozy fielding questions from panelists and he is really trying to articulate ideas to get france moving forward...

from what i spoke with french people segolene is viewed as someone "..who promises people whatever they want to hear.." even though its not realistic to expect she will be able to deliver..someone with very little intelligence...

i think its a mistake to analyze the french election in terms of sarkozy is like a republican and royal like a democrat.... some of the things sarkozy is saying like that there is a need to lower taxes in france are true.. many many people with money are moving out to england or switzerland and this is not good for france...also when sarkozy speaks of a need to work more i think thats true for france...

anyways, i wouldn't post this but i saw sarkozy speak a few times (through french television) and i was really impressed with him....i wondered to myself "man if only bush was 1/20th as intellligent as this guy"..

combine with the fact that I am not on the "far left" anymore to make the socialist party no longer a reflexive choice.

Huh? Since when is the PS considered "far left"? I'm sure folks like Oliver Besancenot would chuckle at that description.

I still DO consider myself far left, but am hoping Royal wins the runoff.

must read analysis from jerome a paris - "Why the French election matters to all progressives"

Bayrou is the Democrat. He is a capitalist with sanity. He is more popular than the other candidate in the poverty stricken areas which hate Sarkozy. They hate him for a reason, he represents the maintream French racist who wants things thinly veiled. Le Pen, is Le Pen, he has no qualms about putting forth a fascist platform in everything, but name. Royal won't do anything for the poor in France, she will protect the upper-middle class state functionaries and can't help the French economy because she doesn't want to reform it. She has said that she would not allow Iran to gain nuclear power, apparently she doesn't understand how the ABM treaties work. Bayrou is it. He is the Democrat.

Royal is not a candidate the far left will get any support from. They have a number of Communist/Trotskyist candidates who tend to get around 10% of the vote (although the French Communists are a shadow of what they were in the 1960s and the debacle with Jospin last time is likely to hurt the extreme left's numbers this time). The French socialists are solidly social democratic and Royal is definitely not on the left wing of the party. Her campaign is Blairite in the extreme, which is why I (someone who would if pushed probably describe himself as a socialist) have grave reservations about her.

Bayrou, on the other hand, just seems to be a sane and Gallic version of Perot - relying on general distrust of politicians to try to present himself as a new alternative.

As for Sarkozy, the fact that he's shown no remorse for his almighty cockup which caused the riots and that he's content to essentially campaign against the banlieues means I can't support him. French culture has to become much more accepting of immigrants and their descendants (and also to create many more jobs for them), not just term them 'scum'.

If I were French, I think I'd vote for Royal, but I don't think it's a great choice. It's worth remembering that Blair largely came to power because the Tories were slightly less popular than most venereal diseases by 1997, not because his policies were universally popular. Whilst his position remained strong until around 2001 when the government actually did something (particularly on primary school education), the decline in popularity since then isn't just down to Iraq - the non-stop PFI disasters and obsession with restructuring instead of substantive change have certainly reinforced the meme that government never does anything useful.

to get a Primary Runoff in the Philadelphia elections? Would we have to change state law or just city?

FYI: In Texas we only have runoffs in primaries and special elections -- such as last year's special elections when the courts ordered new congressional districts after the primaries. Otherwise, the general election is won by plurality.

it's 8pm.  polls have been closed in most parts of france for between 1-2 hours (with paris, marseilles and lyon open until 8).  results will be released very shortly (i'm talking minutes).

and why not get them straight from the horse's mouth?

official results from the french interior ministry website:

http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_ votre_service/resultats-elections/PR2007 /FE.html

there are also unofficial results already at the three major french dailies:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/
http://www.liberation.fr/
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@ 2-823448,36-899829@51-898554,0.html

ps. comprehensive exit poll results can be found here (by far the best site online for the election):

http://www.election-politique.com/

"As a side note, I am surprised at how easily I find it to read articles about polls and election results in French. I have never taken a single French class in my life, but I think there might be something bordering on a universal political horserace language. I mean, I actually understand these articles (or, at least, I think I understand them)."

I've been tracking this race for a while and I've been thinking the same thing.  I didn't realize how similar our languages were, at least in terms of how they are written, until I started looking at polls.  

I do think France could gain from economic reforms - the inability to increase youth employment has been a major problem - but Sarkozy's foreign policy, among other policies, seems troubling.  He's taken an apologetic tone for France's opposition to the Iraq war when meeting Bush, but then, to indicate his independence from the US, has opposed the bid of Turkey (a democratic model among Muslim states) to join the EU, despite Turkey's reform efforts (such as abolishing the death penalty).  I realize foreign policy may not be Royal's area of expertise, but I hope France won't be getting a Bush bis in voting for Sarkozy.

It's a quibble, but you are thinking of
the recent election where the open field
in November was narrowed to the two
highest vote getters in a December runoff.
But that is not the law in texas. It was
a one-time only special election ordered
by the District Court after the Supremes
found in June/July that one gerrymandered
district violated the Voting Rights Act.

The lower court saw that not enough time
remained before the November election
to allow for primaries and a real campaign,
the Judge ordered a Louisiana-style election
only in the districts where the lines had been
redrawn to correct the violation.

In the other districts the incumbents won
well over 50% in the redrawn districts. Only
in the one district did several Democratic
candidates split the vote and keep Bonilla,
the R incumbent, below 50%, thereby
triggering the special runoff won by Ciro
Rodriguez.