Products and services
In the end, it wasn’t enough. Despite closing the substantial lead enjoyed by his rival on the morrow of the first round of the French presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy was still defeated by François Hollande by over three percentage points (48.47% vs. 51.63%) in the second round run-off. As such, Sarkozy is the first incumbent president to fail in his bid for reelection since 1981 while Hollande becomes the first Socialist to win the presidency since 1988.
Read More
On the face of it, the first round of the French 2012 presidential elections went according to script. The Socialist candidate François Hollande—who came first with 28.6% of the vote—will square off, as predicted, against Nicolas Sarkozy, the candidate of the Right who garnered 27.2% of the vote, in the second round run-off on May 6. However, beyond this widely anticipated run-off, the first round results confounded the pundits’ expectations in two important respects.
Read MoreKeep up with the latest from Cambridge University Press on our social media accounts.
