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In the magazine this month

June 2012

François Hollande's lack of clear convictions won him the presidency. Will France regret saying non to Sarkozy?
In his novel Les Ambassades Roger Peyrefitte describes how, as his wealthy young hero's train crosses France in 1937, the blinds of the restaurant car are drawn so as not to arouse the anger of the supporters of Léon Blum's Popular Front government. I thought of this vignette as I made my way to Paris on the afternoon of France's presidential election. A promised top income tax rate of 75 per cent would soon be adding to London's already substantial French population.Later that afternoon, as I walked through the streets of the prosperous 7th arrondissement and past the gilded dome above Napoleon's tomb, there was no evident sense of either anticipation or anxiety. French law stipulates that there can be no campaigning on election day and, were it not for an occasional queue outside a polling station, one would hardly have known that an election was taking place. 
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