France: Ruling Socialists beat National Front in by-election

[shenmue]

Story here

By a narrow margin, François Hollande's party beat the ultra-right National Front. Whew. The NF makes me vomit.

[Fuzzy Slipper]

1. I haven't be to France for over 20 years

But from what I hear from some old friends I don't know you can afford to live there anymore.

[MADem]

2. Yes, the important -- and scary -- words there are "By a narrow margin."

It's amazing how many wingnut racist asses there are in "liberal" Europe.

[Jim Lane]

3. Another key datum: In the first round, the National Front outpolled the UMP (center-right party).

Reading this story I was wondering why it seemed as if the National Front was main opposition. I forgot that France uses runoffs.

In the first round, the results were:

National Front (Montel) 32.6%
Socialist (Barbier) 28.85%
UMP (Demouge) 26.54%

The UMP is Sarkozy's party. To their credit, many of the UMP leaders called for a vote for the Socialist, even though it was the Socialists under Hollande who had defeated Sarkozy's re-election bid. These UMP leaders made common cause with their longtime adversaries, in the interest of stopping the ultra-right. (See this story about the debates within the UMP.)

I don't know how typical this district is. The possibility that the National Front might replicate these results elsewhere, and replace UMP as the main opposition party, is frightening.