French Election: Francois Hollande takes the lead

Preliminary results announced at 8:00 p.m. on April 22, local time (1:00 a.m. on April 23, Vietnam time) by French television, at Paris City Hall, Socialist Party (PS) candidate Francois Hollande led with 28.4% of the votes and incumbent president Nicola Sarkozy, candidate of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) received 25.5% of the votes in the first round of the French presidential election for the 2012-2017 term. These two candidates will continue the race in the second round which will take place on May 6.

According to the results, in the first round of the French presidential election, the rate of voters who did not vote stopped at 20% of the total 44.5 million eligible voters, higher than the 16.2% in the 2007 election but much lower than predicted. However, as predicted from polls close to the first round of the election, the leaders of the two largest parties in France won the highest support from voters to enter the second round.

Mr. Francois Hollande answered questions after taking the lead in the first round. Photo: AFP-TTXVN

The biggest surprise in the first round was candidate Mari Le Pen, who came in third with 20% compared to the 10% of the vote her father Jean Mari Le Pen achieved in the 2007 election. In her first run for office, the female candidate of the National Front (FN) party achieved a record score, surpassing the 16.86% score of 2002.

Not living up to expectations, Left Front candidate Jean Luc-Mélenchon, whose core is the Communist Party and the Left Party, only won 11.7%, settling for fourth place. However, public opinion said that the double-digit result was still a remarkable success for the left-wing coalition and that this victory would have an important meaning for Mr. Hollande's success or failure in the second round.

The biggest disappointment in the first round was candidate Françoi Bayrou of the Democratic Movement (MoDem), who received only 8.5% of the vote and accepted fifth place.

Preliminary results show that the current French President's reputation has significantly decreased compared to the 2007 election, when he won 31.18% of the vote. Speaking after the announcement of the first round results, he repeated his statement that he wanted to hold three direct debates with his opponent Hollande before the second round. "I propose to hold three debates on socio-economic issues, social issues and international issues," he emphasized.

However, Mr. Sarkozy's proposal was once again rejected by his opponent, Hollande. "It is not because of bad results that we have to change the organization. We just need to have a debate with enough time," the Socialist candidate emphasized in the presence of many domestic and foreign reporters. Speaking in Tulle, a stronghold of the left, a locality in central France after the preliminary results were announced, he affirmed that French voters had "allowed him to have the best position to become the next President of the Republic."

In the first round of the election, Mr. Hollande won a very high support in the overseas provinces, with 53.29% of the vote compared to 17.96% for Mr. Sarkozy. In Martinique, he won 51.98% of the vote and in Guadeloupe, 57%.

It is known that 700 reporters from 33 countries and territories around the world are closely following the developments of this year's French presidential election.

According to News