bq. Nicolas Sarkozy, will receive 48.1% of the vote in the second round of the French presidential election in May 2012 against 51.9% for the candidate of the moderate Left, the Socialist François Hollande.
That is the forecast of political scientists Martial Foucault and Richard Nadeau, contingent on current trends in unemployment and Sarkozy’s current approval rating. An ungated article explaining their forecast and offering caveats is here.
I thank Cambridge University Press for placing this article outside the paywall. Thanks also to Barbara Walthall at the American Political Science Association for tipping me off.