Elections

Today was the first presidential election (of two) in France. It's all everyone has been talking about for the past few weeks. Today they eliminate all candidates but two, and after a "fortnight" (who uses that word anymore?) they choose between the two.

We didn't see any evidence of the big vote today, but we didn't go past the Hotel de Ville, either, and I think that's where all the action went down.

At the end of the day Dave flipped on the television to catch up with the score. I don't know if the votes are all counted yet, but it looks like Nicolas Sarkozy got 30% of the vote and Segolene Royal got 25%.

I know almost nothing about the candidates or their platforms, but I do know that Sarkozy is right wing and favored to win. And he's married to a former supermodel. How French.

Segolene Royal is socialist and a woman. I'm missing some accents in her name because I'm using my trusty American keyboard and too lazy to figure out the necessary keystrokes. I don't know who's she's married to.

Dave wants Segolene to win because he wants to know what it will be like to live in a country led by a member of a socialist party and see how France changes ("We'll have to pay more taxes"). He doesn't want Sarkozy to win only because he looks smug in his campaign posters.