the electoral record of the french communist party (pcf) in 2007 was marked by dismal performances, first in the presidential election in which the party's national secretary marie-george buffet stood as a candidate supported by the pcf within the framework of an anti-liberal alliance; she was routed in the first round, receiving just 1.93% of the overall vote, a result deemed "catastrophic" for the party. the party's result in the subsequent legislative elections was similarly middling: though it outpaced the projections of pollsters, which placed it between only 5 and 15 seats, it still fell short of the threshold of 20 deputies, then required for the formation of a parliamentary group in the national assembly. as a result, alain bocquet, outgoing leader of the preceding communist group in the assembly, demanded on 18 june that the requirement for the number of deputies to form a political group be lowered to 15 from 20 then needed, with a total of 15 deputies elected under the pcf label in the legislative elections (not counting pcf dissident maxime gremetz or pcf associate deputies jean-pierre brard and jacques desallangre). bocquet, referring to the recent election of nicolas sarkozy in the presidential election, added "if the president of the republic is a democrat, he will prove it", further arguing that "contrary to all predictions, the conditions for the constitution of a communist group in the national assembly have been met, and their recognition is only a regulatory formality".