The French Presidential and Legislative Elections of 2007
Résumé
The presidential and legislative elections that were held during spring
2007 in France were closely watched over after the ‘earthquake’ of 2002
(Perrineau and Ysmal 2003; Gaffney 2004) and the ‘no’ to the European
constitution through the referendum of 29 May 2007 (Sauger et al. 2007).
The 2002 presidential election in France was seen as boiling down to a
contest between an incumbent president of the centre-right, Jacques Chirac,
and an outgoing prime minister of the centre-left, Lionel Jospin, coming
after a period of cohabitation between left and right that marked the end of
the final seven-year presidential term (...).