2012 French Legislative Election

[Phoenix]

For those of you who are unaware, the French presidential election has just entered it's second round between Nicholas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement) and François Hollande (Socialist Party). Perhaps more important than the presidential election, however, is the upcoming legislative election in June, in which all 577 seats of the National Assembly of France will be contested. For those of you who do not know, the National Assembly is the lower house of the French Parliament. The Senate is the upper house of the French Parliament and is elected by an electoral college composed of over 150,000 governor officials from regional and local government offices.

The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) is the current ruling party in France and they are self-proclaimed "centre-right," however by normal standards, they are quite far left and pro-EU. The Socialist Party is the second largest party in France and is even further left than the UMP and they are pro-EU as well. The National Front is the third largest party and are left-wing on economic issues, while being opposed to the European Union and opposed to the failed immigration policies of the current administration. The French people are really stuck between a rock and a hard-place, but as is typical with politics. Personally if I were French, I would most likely vote for the smaller Arise the Republic and/or Movement for France parties.

Arise the Republic (Led By: Nicolas Dupont-Aignan)

Gaullism, Republicanism, Souverainism, Euroscepticism

Democratic Movement (Led By: François Bayrou)

Social Democracy, Pro-EU

French Communist Party (Led By: Pierre Laurent)

Communism

Movement for France (Led By: Philippe de Villiers)

Conservatism, Souverainism, Euroscepticism

National Front (Led By: Marine Le Pen)

French Nationalism, Social Conservatism, Anti-Globalization, Protectionism, Euroscepticism

New Centre (Led By: Hervé Morin)

Liberalism, Social Democracy, Pro-EU

Radical Party (Led By: Jean-Louis Borloo)

Liberalism, Social Democracy, Laïcité

Socialist Party (Led By: Martine Aubry)

Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism

Union for a Popular Movement (Led By: Nicolas Sarkozy)

Gaullism, Conservatism, Liberal Conservatism, Christian Democracy, Pro-EU

[† Anras Rune]

I seriously doubt that most people on the forum know anything about the French elections, just like I doubt they know about the Greek elections... most people don't even follow their own countries elections.

As to my choice, I'd most likely go with the National Front, just so the french twats would stick their nose out of Britain's business and stop being Germany's little french bitch. The EU is a novel idea when it's going well but with the crisis the two have been taking the utter piss. If the Eurozone was still held together properly without all the one sided backstabbing thats going on now we'd still be the most economically influential group in the world. But alas, such is life.

[Phoenix]

Yes, it is unfortunate that more people don't take an active interest in their local, state, national and possibly even international politics. I'm a little scared of National Front's economic policy and I think they are incorrectly blaming immigration, when the real culprit is multiculturalism. I'm not saying that the EU's atrocious immigration policy doesn't play a large role in that, because it no-doubt does, but I don't think immigration can be blamed for the failures of multiculturalism.