{"id":5459,"date":"2013-06-17T08:58:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T08:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=5459"},"modified":"2013-06-17T08:58:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T08:58:36","slug":"france-23-year-old-right-wing-candidate-defeats-socialist-minister-in-first-round-of-by-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=5459","title":{"rendered":"France: 23-year old right-wing candidate defeats Socialist minister in first round of by-election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Etienne<\/a>
Etienne Bousquet-Cassagne of the Front National<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

France’s socialist government suffered the indignity of a first-round exit in a parliamentary by-election to replace a disgrace minister forced out over a tax-dodging scandal.<\/p>\n

Former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who is facing charges of tax fraud, stepped down from his parliamentary seat in April.<\/p>\n

In Sunday’s by-election for his seat in Lot-et-Garonne, southwest France, the socialist candidate was pushed into third place — and thus eliminated.<\/p>\n

The second-round run-off on June 23 will be fought between a candidate from the centre-right UMP party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy; and a member of the far-right National Front (FN).<\/p>\n

The vote was marked by a turn-out significantly lower than in the 2012 general election: only 46 percent of the 75,000 voters eligible to have their say bothered to do so.<\/p>\n

President Francois Hollande acknowledged that the result was fall-out from the scandal around Cahuzac, whose ministerial portfolio had included the fight against tax evasion.<\/p>\n

For UMP president Jean-Francois Cope, the result was another “scathing repudiation of Francois Hollande and his policies”.<\/p>\n

Socialist party leader Harlem Desir called on voters to ensure the FN candidate did not win the second-round run-off vote.<\/p>\n

Sunday’s result was another slap in the face for the ruling Socialists after defeats last weekend in two other by-elections.<\/p>\n

The party now has 292 deputies in the National Assembly: just three seats more than the 289 seats that ensures an absolute majority.<\/p>\n

Through to the second round are the UMP’s Jean-Louis Costes, who came first with 28.7 percent of the vote; and the FN candidate, 23-year-old Etienne Bousquet-Cassagne, who polled 26 percent.<\/p>\n

Socialist candidate Bernard Barral came third with 23.7 percent. – AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

France’s socialist government suffered the indignity of a first-round exit in a parliamentary by-election to replace a disgrace minister forced out over a tax-dodging scandal. Former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who is facing charges of tax fraud, stepped down from his parliamentary seat in April. In Sunday’s by-election for his seat in Lot-et-Garonne, southwest France, … Continue reading “France: 23-year old right-wing candidate defeats Socialist minister in first round of by-election”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[3172,3173,534,3174,963,3175],"class_list":["post-5459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-by-election","tag-etienne-bousquet-cassagne","tag-france","tag-jerome-cahuzac","tag-politics","tag-tax-dodging-scandal"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/etienne-bousquet-cassagne.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5462,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459\/revisions\/5462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}