France votes; Europe intrudes

Whatever next? Politicians talking about Europe during an election campaign, and not just in a eurosceptic bidding war, but arguing about European policies. In previous French elections, Europe and all its works were castigated by the Le Pen family, and by sundry hard left candidates, but the mainstream skirted around the inconvenient subject.

But what is happening in the 2012 Presidential Election in France in 2012 is that European questions have become some of the key fault lines in the campaigns of the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy and the socialist challenger, Francois Hollande

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: French presidential election, 2012 http://www.europeansources.info/record/french-presidential-election-2012/

ESO: Background information: Sarkozy, Hollande snipe at EU to woo voters http://www.europeansources.info/record/analysis-sarkozy-hollande-snipe-at-eu-to-woo-voters/

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