2007 French presidential election

The 2007 French presidential election is held to elect a president of France for a five year term. The first round of voting is taking place on Sunday, 22 April 2007. If no candidate obtains an absolute majority, a second round between the two leading candidates will take place on Sunday, 6 May 2007. This is the ninth presidential election of the Fifth French Republic. The first round has had a record-breaking turnout: the French Ministry of the Interior announced that 73.87% of all voters had voted by 5 p.m. on Sunday. By 5:30 pm UTC, about 84.5% of all voters had voted.

La Tribune de Geneve indicates at 5:45 pm UTC that the two leading candidates are Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy according to initial results, with 29 and 26% of the vote respectively (Le Pen : 10, Bayrou : 18).

Jacques Rene Chirac is the current President of France. He has held this position since he was first elected in 1995. He won a re-election in 2002. His current term expires on May 17, 2007 and he announced on March 11, 2007 that he will not be running in the current presidential elections.

Segolene Royal is the President of the Poitou-Charentes region, a member of the National Assembly, and a prominent member of the Socialist Party. On 16 November 2006, Socialist Party members elected her as their candidate for the 2007 French presidential election.

Nicolas Sarkozy is a French politician, and the head of the right-of-centre party UMP, the French conservative party. He is often nicknamed Sarko by both his French supporters and opponents.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is a French far-right nationalist politician, founder and president of the Front National (National Front) party, and a candidate for the French presidency.

Francois Bayrou is a French politician, president of Union for French Democracy since 1998, and a leading candidate in the 2007 French presidential election. A former Member of the European Parliament, he also served as Minister of National Education in the conservative governments of Edouard Balladur and Alain Juppe, from 1993 to 1997.