2015年经济学人 法国省议会选举 三雄争霸

French elections

Menage a trios

The National Front's strength makes French politics a three-way affair

SOMETIMES small elections are markers of major political change.

France's latest vote, a two-round ballot¹ on March 22nd and 29th to elect deputies to the 98 assemblies of France's “departments”,

may well turn out to be just such an election. On the face of it, the outcome will be a straightforward² victory for the centre-right,

led by Nicolas Sarkozy, a former president. In reality, it marks a shift in France from alternating two-party politics to a more fluid tripartite system.

The first element in this new political order is the performance of the populist National Front (FN), with its anti-immigration,

anti-Europe and anti-establishment message. The party's combative³ leader, Marine⁴ Le Pen, had hoped it would come top in first-round voting and become,

in her words, “the first party ofFrance”. In the end, Mr Sarkozy's UMP scored 29%, while the FN finished second with 25%, short of the triumph she had hoped for.

For some commentators⁵, this amounted to a defeat. Manuel Valls, the Socialist⁶ prime minister whose party came third with 21%,

reportedly lit a cigar to celebrate the FN's failure to place first. It was, he said, an “honourable” result for his party,

and he congratulated “republican” voters for rejecting a party which, he judges, does not share the country's founding values.

Certainly the polls, which had predicted Ms Le Pen's party would win about 30%, turned out to have been a poor guide,

in part because voter turnout was higher than usual for this sort of election.

Yet it is a measure of how far the FN has come to shape the French political debate that her result could be considered a disappointment.

It was the party's best-ever score at national level, just above that achieved at European elections in 2014.

The party came top in nearly half the country's departments, including some of the rural constituencies that have become its new frontier.

In the run-offs, the FN is set to pick up scores of councillors, up from just two in 2011.

In other words, the FN is transforming itself from a fringe movement that throws up periodic freak results into a regular feature of French politics,

with the electoral ups and downs that this implies. This increasingly makes it an alternative opposition⁷ party to the governing Socialists⁸,

with a solid quarter or so of voters. Such a position is all the more remarkable⁹ given that the UMP's first-place score was achieved only thanks to an alliance with the UDI and Modem¹⁰, two centrist parties.

All the same, Mr Sarkozy will take comfort from the result, which is likely to hand his party a sweeping¹¹ victory in the second round.

Hitherto the ex-president's political comeback had been faltering¹². Mr Sarkozy was elected UMP chief last November on the back of a lower-than-expected score,

and has struggled to convince a divided party and its centre-right voters that he is the leader of the future.

The latest result will strengthen his hand, and his chances of securing the party's presidential nomination¹³ for elections in 2017.

As for President Fran?ois Hollande, the result was a downright humiliation¹⁴, however much Mr Valls tried to argue otherwise.

The Socialists are set for crushing losses in the second round–they have lost every mid-term election since Mr Hollande took office.

This election exposes a cruel calculation on the left, as the party turns its eyes towards 2017. The Socialists' poor score reflects a failure in most constituencies to join up with the Greens and other parties of the left. If the party has any hope of making it into the presidential run-off in 2017, it needs friends. Yet the ideological¹⁵ differences between the moderates around Mr Valls and the rest of the French left have never looked so wide, nor the chances of bridging them so slim.

1 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。

2 straightforward   

adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的

参考例句：

• A straightforward talk is better than a flowery speech.巧言不如直说。
• I must insist on your giving me a straightforward answer.我一定要你给我一个直截了当的回答。

3 combative   

adj.好战的；好斗的

参考例句：

• Mr. Obama has recently adopted a more combative tone.奥巴马总统近来采取了一种更有战斗性的语调。
• She believes that women are at least as combative as are.她相信女性至少和男性一样好斗。

4 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

5 commentators   

n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员

参考例句：

• Sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 体育解说员翻来覆去说着同样的词语，真叫人腻烦。
• Television sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 电视体育解说员说来说去就是那么几句话，令人厌烦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 socialist   

n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的

参考例句：

• China is a socialist country,and a developing country as well.中国是一个社会主义国家，也是一个发展中国家。
• His father was an ardent socialist.他父亲是一个热情的社会主义者。

7 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

8 socialists   

社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The socialists saw themselves as true heirs of the Enlightenment. 社会主义者认为自己是启蒙运动的真正继承者。
• The Socialists junked dogma when they came to office in 1982. 社会党人1982年上台执政后，就把其政治信条弃之不顾。

9 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

10 modem   

n.调制解调器

参考例句：

• Does your computer have a modem?你的电脑有调制解调器吗？
• Provides a connection to your computer via a modem.通过调制解调器连接到计算机上。

11 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

12 faltering   

犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的

参考例句：

• The economy shows no signs of faltering. 经济没有衰退的迹象。
• I canfeel my legs faltering. 我感到我的腿在颤抖。

13 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

14 humiliation   

n.羞辱

参考例句：

• He suffered the humiliation of being forced to ask for his cards.他蒙受了被迫要求辞职的羞辱。
• He will wish to revenge his humiliation in last Season's Final.他会为在上个季度的决赛中所受的耻辱而报复的。

15 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。