Election time is over in France
The second and final round of French parliamentary elections took place yesterday, and results are interesting : if, as expected, Sarkozy’s party (UMP) got a clear majority within the Parliament, the Socialists got a rather good result compared to the gloomy projections of one week ago.
The President Party got 314 seats, the Socialists 185 (total number of seats is 577). The communist party, who was totally outdated in the Presidential race few weeks ago, will survive in the Parliament, with 15 seats. Those of the Centrists who decided to make an alliance with Sarkozy got 22 seats, those who opposed Sarkozy (their leader being former Presidential candidate François Bayrou) got 4 seats. The Greens got 4 seats. There are 107 women in this new Parliament, against only 76 elected in the last elections in 2002.
Sarkozy and his Prime Minister will form a new government taking into account the results, with the potential addition of some Ministers/Secretaries of state to the team formed right after Sarkozy’s victory on May 6th.