Here are theresults for the First Round of the Regional Elections;

Parti Socialiste: 29.5%
UMP: 27%
Europe Ecologie: 12.5%
Front National: 11.7%
Front de Gauche: 6.2%
Modem: 4%
Extreme Gauche: 3.7%
Participation: VERY LOW around 46.5%
Conclusions:

This is the worst score the UMP has ever had. Sarkozy was nowhere to be seen the entire night, and typically the Prime Minister, Francois Fillon was left [...]

Tomorrow I return to France to help the Parti Socialiste in the Regional Elections on Sundays the 14th and the 22nd. I’ve written previously about the corner I’ll be fighting in Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur here and here, and more recently about the polls predicting a socialist victory here.
The lead is not restricted to PACA though, as [...]

The government is in trouble, its President is struggling with a huge crisis, so the Spanish conservative party, El Partido Popular is getting excited.
However, its leader, Mariano Rajoy, has hardly been seen in public over the past few weeks, since the government announced its policy to reform pensions.
Though his PP followers are putting pressure on [...]

Zapatero, President of the Government of Spain was on top form last night in Malaga, where he made a surprisingly powerful speech to party members.

Play it through, even if you don’t understand Spanish. ZP has been the centre-left President of the Government since 2004, and has been fiercely criticised over the fact that Spain has been hit [...]

Though many aspects of Spain are incredibly backwards, there’s something incredibly modern about their politics.
They don’t have silly minority parties like the Lib Dems, they don’t have mad communist parties like in France, and they actually talk about the problems instead of personalities, unlike Britain.
What most struck me though, is their campaigning, and I have two main examples of [...]