Presidential elections were held in France on 21 and 22 April 2007 to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France (and "ex officio" Co-Prince of Andorra) for a five-year term. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 5 and 6 May 2007 between the two leading candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Sarkozy was elected with 53% of the vote.
Sarkozy and Royal both represented a generational change. Both main candidates were born after World War II, along with the first to have seen adulthood under the Fifth Republic, and the first not to have been in politics under Charles de Gaulle.
The result was likely a center squeeze, a kind of spoiler effect common to the plurality-rule family of voting rules, with left-wing populist Royal eliminating moderate liberal François Bayrou in the first round, despite polls showing a majority of voters preferred Bayrou in a one-on-one match with either of his opponents.
Electoral system.
For the first time in a presidential election, electronic voting was introduced in some areas, having been authorised in 2004. They were introduced in only 82 of 36,000 voting districts, and were criticised by a number of people, both on the left and on the right. A petition against them has also been made (see ).
Using the three colours of the national flag (blue, white, and red) on electoral advertisements or partisan documentation was prohibited by electoral regulations. Ségolène Royal contended that the book "Ensemble" ("together") published by Nicolas Sarkozy, whose cover is blue, white and red, was effectively an electoral partisan documentation and should have been covered by this prohibition.
"Reference: Constitutional Council, FAQ"
Candidates.
Requirements.
The requirements for being successfully nominated as a candidate are defined by the organic law of 6 November 1962.
All candidates must be of French nationality and at least 23 years old (the same requirement as for the candidates to the National Assembly).
Candidates must obtain signatures from 500 elected officials (mayors, members of Parliament, elected representatives) supporting their candidacy. These signatures from elected officials (informally known in French as "parrainages", but legally known as "presentations") must be from at least 30 departments or overseas territories, and no more than 10 percent can be from any individual department. A presentation from an elected official does not imply the official supports the policies of the candidate, but rather that this official considers the candidate to be a serious candidate.
Candidates must also submit a statement with details of their personal assets.
The Constitutional Council published the official candidate list on 20 March 2007. The candidates were listed in a randomised order. This order was used for the official campaign: thus, posters for Olivier Besancenot were always be on the No. 1 board, those for Marie-George Buffet on the No. 2 board, etc., regardless of where in France the boards were located.
There were 12 candidates for the 2007 election.
Leading candidates.
Four candidates consistently registered over 10% in the opinion polls and were regarded as having a reasonable chance of reaching the second round.
Other candidates.
These were the eight other candidates who obtained the required 500 signatures from elected officials to endorse their candidacy.
Campaign.
The election campaign raised a number of issues:
Endorsements.
French personalities.
Approximately 200 French intellectuals expressed support for Ségolène Royal. These included the philosopher Étienne Balibar (a student of Louis Althusser), the editor François Maspero, the historian Pierre Rosanvallon, the psychoanalyst Fethi Benslama, the philosopher Jacques Bouveresse, the sociologist Robert Castel, the philosopher Catherine Colliot-Thélène, the writer Chloé Delaume, the historian Michel Dreyfus, the anthropologist Françoise Héritier, the sculptor Françoise Jolivet, the film-maker Roy Lekus, the sociologist Eric Macé, the philosopher Pierre Macherey, the philosopher Jean-Claude Monod the artist Ariane Mnouchkine, the economist Yann Moulier-Boutang (involved with "Multitudes"), the historian Gérard Noiriel, the historian Pascal Ory, the historian Michelle Perrot, the economist Thomas Piketty, the historian Benjamin Stora, the anthropologist Emmanuel Terray, the lawyer Michel Tubiana (former president of the Human Rights League), and the sociologist Loïc Wacquant (a student of Pierre Bourdieu).
Régis Debray called to vote first for a far-left candidate, then Royal in the second round.
On the other hand, the so-called "Nouveaux Philosophes" were split on their support. André Glucksmann called to vote Sarkozy, while Bernard-Henri Lévy voted for Ségolène Royal. Max Gallo, who had supported the left-wing Republican Jean-Pierre Chevènement in 2002, joined Sarkozy five years later. Pascal Bruckner and Alain Finkielkraut have also proved close to Sarkozy, although they did not declare support for him, but Sarkozy did support Finkielkraut after controversial statements made in "Haaretz" newspaper following the 2005 civil unrest. According to the journalist Jacques Julliard, the support of some French intellectuals for the 2003 invasion of Iraq is the root of their rallying to Sarkozy, following the creation of the review titled "Le Meilleur des mondes" (Brave New World). Pascal Bruckner, historian Stéphane Courtois, Thérèse Delpech, André Glucksmann, Romain Goupil, Pierre-André Taguieff, Olivier Rollin, and Pierre Rigoulot are frequent contributors to this review.
Tennis player Yannick Noah called to vote for Royal, while Sarkozy obtained the support of singers Johnny Hallyday, Mireille Mathieu and Faudel, of rapper Doc Gyneco, and former politician and current actor Bernard Tapie. He also had the support of actors Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, both residing in Neuilly-sur-Seine where Sarkozy was the mayor between 1983 and 2002 and of Gérard Depardieu. But also of industrialist Martin Bouygues, whose children attended the same school as Sarkozy's offspring. The humourist Dieudonné and the writer Alain Soral supported Jean-Marie Le Pen. Actress Juliette Binoche supported José Bové.
The song "Elle est facho" (She's a fascist) on the "Rouge Sang" album by singer Renaud released in 2006 gained particular media attention for lyrics in the last verse that translate as "she's a fascist and votes Sarko"
Prominent political commentator Alain Duhamel was suspended in 2006 after a video was published on DailyMotion, where he stated his personal intentions of voting for François Bayrou.
International support.
Abroad, Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy, gave his support to Sarkozy immediately following the first round, while Romano Prodi, the then Italian premier and leader of the centre-left Union coalition, called for an alliance between Bayrou and Royal.
Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has shown his support for Royal.
European commissioner and Vice-President Margot Wallström was criticised after she informally suggested support for Royal on her blog, celebrating the fact that a woman got into the second round. She said: "J'étais si contente de voir qu'une femme participera au deuxième tour de l‘élection présidentielle!" (I was so happy to see that a woman would be participating in the second round of the presidential election!) Commissioners are not meant to be politically biased in elections under their code of conduct. Wallström is a social-democrat, like Royal. José Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission, has privately discussed the idea of forming a "strategic partnership" with Mr. Sarkozy.
Many U.S. pundits and western economists expressed support for Nicolas Sarkozy. Steve Forbes devoted several columns in the influential financial publication "FORBES Magazine". The London-based magazine "The Economist" also expressed support for Sarkozy's economic platform .
Alleged Libyan financial contributions to Sarkozy.
In 2011, according to the son of the Libyan leader Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, Sarkozy was provided with financial support from Libya during the presidential election. In 2012, Mediapart published material revealing Gaddafi's financial support to Nicolas Sarkozy for the election.
In March 2018 Sarkozy was charged for corruption.
Opinion polls.
French law prohibits publishing the results of opinion polls related to the election during the day of the election and the preceding day, so as to prevent undue influencing of the vote. No estimate can be given before Sunday 8 pm, when the last voting office closes and official counts begin to be released. However, media from neighbouring countries, which are not bound by these regulations, have long broadcast estimates (Télévision Suisse Romande in particular). In 2007, the issue took a particular importance because of the generalisation of blogs and Internet pages. Journalist Jean-Marc Morandini stirred turmoil when he announced his intention of publishing results on his blog as soon as 18:00. Another problem was that the results from the voting offices in the Americas (consulates and French overseas possessions) were counted on Saturday night, and some began circulating rumours as to these results.
Results.
The first round saw a very high turnout of 83.8% – 36.7 million of the 44.5 million electorate voted from a population of 64.1 million (not including French people living abroad). The results of that round saw Sarkozy and Royal qualify for the second round with Sarkozy getting 31% and Royal 26%. François Bayrou came third (19%) and Jean-Marie Le Pen fourth (10%), unlike in 2002 when Le Pen got a surprising 16.9% and qualified for the second round.
Immediately after the first round's results were made official, four defeated left-wing candidates – José Bové, Marie-George Buffet, Arlette Laguiller and Dominique Voynet – urged their supporters to vote for Royal. This was the first time since 1981 that Laguiller had endorsed the Socialist Party's candidate. Olivier Besancenot called his supporters to vote against Sarkozy. Frédéric Nihous and Gérard Schivardi never officially supported either Royal or Sarkozy. Philippe de Villiers called for a vote for Sarkozy. Le Pen told his voters to "abstain massively" in the second round.
On 25 April, Bayrou declared he would not support either candidate in the runoff, and announced he would form a new political party called the Democratic Movement. He criticised both major candidates, and offered to debate them. Royal agreed to hold a televised debate, while Sarkozy offered to have a private discussion but not a televised debate.
By around 6:15 pm local time on 6 May, Belgian and Swiss news sources such as "Le Soir", RTBF, " La Libre Belgique" and "La Tribune de Genève" had announced Nicolas Sarkozy as the winner of the second round, citing preliminary exit poll data. The final CSA estimate showed him winning with 53% of the votes cast. Royal conceded defeat to Sarkozy that evening.
First round and analysis.
Nationwide, Nicolas Sarkozy obtained 31% and Ségolène Royal 26% – while in 2002, Jacques Chirac had obtained 20%, and Lionel Jospin 16.18%. The right-of-centre François Bayrou obtained 18.6% this time, nearly tripling his 2002 result (6.8%). National Front (FN) candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made only 10.4%, compared to his stunning 16.9% finish in 2002. Along with the April–May shift to the far right made by Sarkozy, this has led many commentators to allege that traditional voters of the FN had been tempted by Sarkozy. Overall, the left-wing reached 36% of the votes, against 19% for the "centre", 33% for the right wing and 11% for the far right.
Other candidates received a much lower share of the vote than they had in 2002, with Olivier Besancenot (Revolutionary Communist League, LCR) failing to achieve the 5% necessary to have his political campaign reimbursed by the state. Besancenot received 4.1%, compared to 4.3% in 2002. He was followed by the traditionalist Philippe de Villiers (2.2%), Communist Marie-George Buffet (1.9%, compared to 3.4% for Robert Hue in 2002), Green candidate Dominique Voynet (1.6%, compared to 5.3% for Noël Mamère in 2002), Workers' Struggle's candidate Arlette Laguiller (1.3%, compared to 5.7% in 2002), alter-globalisation candidate José Bové (1.3%), Frédéric Nihous (1.2% , against 4.2% for Jean Saint-Josse in 2002) and finally Gérard Schivardi with 0.3% (Daniel Gluckstein had achieved 0.5% in 2002). The abstention rate was 15.4%.
With an overall record turnout of 83.8%, a level not achieved since the 1965 presidential election when turnout was 84.8%, the vast majority of the electorate decided not to stay home. Most of them decided against protest votes, and chose the "vote utile" (tactical voting, literally "useful vote"), that is, a vote for one of the purported leaders of the electoral race (Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolène Royal and/or François Bayrou). The "Anyone But Sarkozy" push benefited both Bayrou and Royal, while the tactical voting, on the right or on the left, explains the low score of the other candidates, in contrast with the last presidential election's first round.
The electoral campaign saw a polarisation of the political scene, encapsulated by the "Anyone But Sarkozy" slogan on the left. But it also saw a reconfiguration of the political chessboard, with various left-wing figures and voters deciding to support Sarkozy against Royal, who saw opposition inside her own party. Bernard Tapie, a former Socialist, Max Gallo, who had supported left-wing Republican Jean-Pierre Chevènement in 2002, Eric