French presidential election of 2007

French presidential election, 2007

← 2002 21–22 April and 5–6 May 2007 2012 →
Nominee Nicolas Sarkozy Ségolène Royal Party UMP PS Popular vote 18,983,138 16,790,440 Percentage 53.1% 46.9%
Results of the second round by department   Nicolas Sarkozy   Ségolène Royal
President before election Jacques Chirac UMP Elected President Nicolas Sarkozy UMP

Jacques Chirac
UMP

Nicolas Sarkozy
UMP

The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France (and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra) for a five-year term.

The winner, decided on 5 and 6 May 2007, was Nicolas Sarkozy. The first round of voting took place on Saturday, 21 April 2007 (French territories in the Americas and the Eastern Pacific) and Sunday, 22 April 2007 (French territories in the Western Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Metropolitan France). As no candidate obtained a majority (50 percent plus one), a second round between the two leading candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, took place on Saturday, 5 May and Sunday, 6 May 2007.

Sarkozy and Royal both represented a generational change. Both main candidates were born after World War II, along with the first to have seen adulthood under the Fifth Republic, and the first not to have been in politics under Charles de Gaulle.

The first round saw a very high turnout of 83.8% – 36.7 million of the 44.5 million electorate voted from a population of 64.1 million (not including French people living abroad). The results of that round saw Sarkozy and Royal qualify for the second round with Sarkozy getting 31% and Royal 26%. François Bayrou came third (19%) and Jean-Marie Le Pen fourth (10%), unlike in 2002 when Le Pen got a surprising 16.9% and qualified for the second round.