RED FRANCE/BLUE FRANCE:

Sarkoland and Segoland: an election of two nations (John Lichfield, 24 April 2007, Independent)

The map looks like France in the middle ages: a country split down the middle, owing allegiance to different monarchs.

It shows, in fact, the France of April 2007 or rather it shows "two Frances" - the deeply divided country that voted in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday.

To the north, east and south is "Sarkoland": the départements (or counties) where the centre-right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, topped the poll. To the west and south-west, with one outlying island in the centre, is the much smaller territory of "Ségoland": the départements where the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, scored the largest number of votes.

François Bayrou, the centrist candidate, came first in only one département, his home area of Pyrénées-Atlantiques on France's Atlantic border with Spain. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right candidate, who came first in many areas in the east and north and south in 2002, topped the poll nowhere in 2007.

The sheer size of the Sarkozy territory illustrates the magnitude of Mme Royal's challenge as she tries to become France's first female president in the second round on 6 May.

Le Pen claims victory of ideas after defeat (John Lichfield, 24 April 2007, Independent)

The first round of the French presidential election was a disaster for the veteran far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Was it a triumph for his ideas?

The French left and the far right, who usually agree on nothing, agreed on one thing yesterday. Nicolas Sarkozy owed his high score on Sunday to the theft of several of M. Le Pen's fav-ourite themes: immigration, crime, national identity.

Communists in disarray as far-left vote collapses (Anne Penketh, 24 April 2007, Independent)

France's Communist and far-left parties suffered an electoral debacle in the first round of the presidential election.

The Communist Party shrank to a record 1.93 per cent of the vote under its leader, Marie-George Buffet, an even more catastrophic result than under her predecessor, Robert Hue. [...]

In 2002, the Communist and radical left parties soaked up 13.8 per cent of the total first-round vote, contributing to the defeat of the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, by the far-right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

On Sunday, their vote totalled 9 per cent.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 23, 2007 8:08 PM