France votes - in large numbers

I spent the morning just outside Paris, in St Denis, were we visited a local polling station. Alreday before noon, more than one third of registered voters had voted there. We knew that the amount of registered voters is 3.3 million higher than 2002 (according to Le Monde today), and now all of France seems to be voting in large numbers. At noon, voter turnout in all of France was 31.2 percent, and this should be compared to the same number at noon in 2002: Only 21.4 percent. That is great news.

Normally, a high turnout (and nice weather) benefits the left in most parts of the world, and in France, high turnout is normally bad for Le Pen. We have projected the election result in the group visiting Paris and my projection is as follws:

Royal: 25,9 percent
Sarkozy: 25,8 percent
Le Pen: 19 percent
Bayrou: 14,4 percent.

Obviously, I put Royal first since I am such an optimist in life in general, and you need to be brave in order to do well in projections like this. Anyway, we will have a solid exit poll at 8 PM, and the rumour is that there will be various projections on the Internet at 7 PM.

Right now, I am sitting at the café Le Fumoir (outdoors) and my food just arrived. Life could be worse.