All you ever wanted to know about the French election, but were too afraid to ask.....
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Time Lord Note:
Paris Time = NZ Time - 10
.............= USA (EST) + 18 hours
Eg
8:00 PM Sunday,Paris = 6:00 AM Monday NZ = 2:00 PM Sunday USA (EST)
3. Sunday: Decision DayPolls open: Voting starts at 8 a.m. and some 47 million people are eligible to vote. Turnout figures will be released at noon and at 5 p.m. At the last presidential election in 2012, turnout was 79.5 percent in the first round. Pollsters expect a lower figure on Sunday. If it is substantially down, it could be good news for Le Pen as more of her supporters are determined to turn out. In 2002, her father pulled off a huge upset in the first round, when turnout was 72 percent, to come second and qualify for the runoff.
Throughout the day: French media outlets will already have live blogs and special election programs running — but the blackout rule still applies so they can’t publish much more than pictures and video of candidates casting their votes. The best place to follow the action? POLITICO’s own live blog, which will start at midday Central European Time and run until late at night — and is not bound by the French media blackout rule.
From 7 p.m. to 8 p.m: Polling stations will shut at 7 p.m. in most places, but not in big cities. Again, Belgian and Swiss media outlets may release early exit polls and first results. These and other figures are bound to bounce around on Twitter — search #Présidentielle2017 to get a sense of what’s happening. But proceed with caution — sparsely-populated areas will be first to declare results, not urban centers.
8 p.m: Polling stations close in big cities such as Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Rennes, Nice, Toulouse, and Nantes. Then it’s…
4. Sunday night: Crunch TimeExit polls: The big French TV networks are now free to release exit polls. But some pollsters have said they may need more time to produce an accurate projection, as polling stations outside major cities are closing an hour later than last time. Plus, with the race so tight, pollsters are wary of making a prediction that could turn out to be spectacularly wrong.
Results roll in: From around 8:30 p.m., results will start to be declared from all over France as local authorities send their data to the interior ministry. All the results by regions, départements and towns will be available here.
Location, location, location: POLITICO asked campaign staffers where they would look for signs of how their candidates had fared overall. Several mentioned Angers — the western city of 150,000 people is considered to be a good representative sample of French voters sociologically. Others mentioned the Bouches-du-Rhône département, which includes Marseille and its outskirts, as it has conservative, far-right, far-left and Socialist strongholds.
As soon as results are clear: Candidates will start giving statements and speeches, all around the same time. Their surrogates will already have been speaking in the major TV and radio studios, getting guidance from headquarters, so they may have dropped hints on how they think things are going.
For the lucky top two: The second round starts now for them. Will they change their talking points to appeal to new voters? Every word will be closely watched to determine their strategy for victory. Whose voters are they going after?
For the knocked-out nine: The candidates who haven’t made the second round will immediately be under pressure to tell their supporters who to back in the runoff. If, as predicted, Le Pen makes the second round, will the other major candidates set aside bitterness from the campaign to rally around her opponent? Or will they offer no guidance or suggest abstaining? Both of those options could help Le Pen, although polls currently predict she would lose to any of her likely second-round rivals.
Away from the election studios … If Le Pen is in the second round, could that trigger protests in Paris or other big cities, like those against her father in 2002?
Then it’s on to round two on May 7 … and then the two-round parliamentary election in June.
Politicohttp://www.politico.eu/article/how-to-w ... melenchon/