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Yesterday saw a new French opinion poll re voting intention for the 2009 European Parliament elections. The percentage support of each French political party is below alongside the percentage support obtained by the party (or its predecessor) in the 2004 European Parliament elections.
The Movement for France of Philippe de Villiers which was represented at the 2004 European Parliament elections will be standing under the Libertas banner at the 2009 European Parliament elections. There is also a new right-wing anti-Lisbon party standing called Arise the Republic and is led by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a dissident anti-Lisbon MP from Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. (If you can speak French you can read more about Arise the Republic in this article: Elections européennes: Nicolas Dupont-Aignan ne fera pas d'alliance | Elections 2009 | EurActiv.fr: L'actualité des politiques européennes en France)
PRO-LISBON
Union for a Popular Movement (Sarkozy's party) 2004: 17% Latest poll: 26%
Socialist Party 2004: 29% Latest poll: 23%
Democratic Movement (MoDem) 2004: 12% Latest poll: 14.5%
The Greens 2004: 7% Latest poll: 7%
ANTI-LISBON
LEFT-WING
Communist Party 2004: 6% Latest poll: 4%
Workers' Struggle 2004: 3% Latest poll: 3%
New Anti-Capitalist Party 2004: N/A Latest poll: 9%
RIGHT-WING
National Front (Le Pen's party) 2004: 10% Latest poll: 6%
Libertas (Movement for France) 2004: 7% Latest poll: 5%
Arise the Republic 2004: N/A Latest poll: 2%
Figures are sourced from the following websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europea...,_2004_(France)
French Elections European Elections 2009
I will be posting updates on this thread.
Please note that for the purposes of the European Parliament elections France, like the U.K., Italy and Ireland, but unlike most other EU countries is divided into constituencies, so that how many MEPs are elected overall depends on the relevant party's support in each particular constituency.
The number of MEPS elected for a constituency varies, ranging from 3 (French overseas territories) and 6 (Central constituency) at the low end up to 12 (North constituency) and 14 (Paris region constituency) at the high end.
7-8% of the national vote will give about 6 seats, but if the vote goes lower than that level then it is very dicey whether or not a party will get any seats and anything less than 4-5% of the national vote is unlikely to win any seats at all.
My predictions, based on how the 2004 European Parliament elections went, are as follows:
- Between now and the election, Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement will lose support and Libertas and Arise the Republic will gain support. The current opinion poll level reflects right-wing voters for Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) who have anti-Lisbon or anti-EU views and who will peel off to Libertas and Arise the Republic for the European Parliament elections but would of course come back to the UMP in French domestic elections.
- The Socialist Party will lose support as the anti-Lisbon New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) gains support. In particular, the Socialist Party will find it difficult to patch over its divisions on Europe, especially now that Martine Aubry, daughter of former French EU Commission President Jacques Delors, has become leader. Some pro-EU Socialist Party supporters may migrate to either the clearly pro-Europe Greens or MoDem, so the Socialist Party must walk a tightrope line to avoid losing support.
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