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France Votes analyzes the French elections of 2012 in the context of a France and Europe in crisis. With regard to the economy, Irwin Wall describes the ways in which the country´s adherence to the common currency in the Eurozone has stripped France of its freedom of manouver. France Votes shows how a European-wide economic crisis was reflected in political crisis at home and the rise of new political extremism combined with mass disaffection from politics altogether. The result of all of this, posits Wall, is that France has become a no-choice democracy.

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Table of Contents Introduction: France and the European Union at a Turning Point 1. The Crisis of the European Union; the Crisis of the Euro; France and the EU 2. France of the Fifth Republic; The Parties and the Electoral System; The Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy; The Campaign and the Elections; The Dimensions of the Socialist Victory. 3. The Peculiarities of the Victory; American Innovations, Party Primaries and The First Ladies; Women in French Politics; The Personal and the Political; Powerful Women For and Against Fran‡ois Hollande; Hollande´s Huge Majority With a Party in the Minority 4. French Democracy in Crisis; The National Front; Old and New Cleavages in the Body Politic; Europe Divides the Parties; The Defection of the Electorate; Is French Democracy in Question? 5. The Hollande Government in Action: Is France After All a ´No-Choice´ Democracy? Conclusion: Whither France and the EU

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"This is an impressive achievement and essential reading for anyone interested in today´s France, its relations with the European Community and its economic challenges."

- John Munholland, University of Minnesota, USA

"By placing the politicians, parties, and policy dilemmas of the 2012 French elections in a deeper history of the European Union and the Fifth French Republic, Irwin Wall has produced a major new contemporary history of France."

- Herrick Chapman, New York University, USA

"Irwin Wall has given us another wonderful book, grounded in meticulous research. France Votes will appeal not only to Francophiles, but to scholars of contemporary France, and to specialists interested in how the electoral process functions in a twenty-first century democracy."

- David L. Schalk, Vassar College, USA

"Irwin Wall´s knowledge of the contemporary French political and economic landscape allows him to use the pivotal elections of 2012 as a focal point for his remarkable survey. While the complexity and significance of the elections are made clear, the book places events in a larger European and global context."

- Leslie Derfler, Florida Atlantic University, USA

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Irwin Wall is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Riverside and currently a Visiting Scholar at New York University, USA.

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