#1463355 ANPEC - 2012 - Exame de Seleção Nacional (ANPEC)/"2013"

Based on your interpretation of the texts that follow, determine if each statement is true or false.

Text 2

(From The Economist print edition April 21st-27th 2012)

Excerpts from:

France’s presidential election

The anti-Sarkozy vote

All the signs point to a win for the Socialist François Hollande, chiefly because he is the anti-Sarkozy candidate

Apr 21st 2012 | DONZY | from the print edition

FAR from the giant rallies and big-screen showmanship of the final days of a presidential campaign, the sleepy town of Donzy in Burgundy feels untouched by politics. The talk in the bars is of the local fête and fishing. Only one campaign poster, for a fringe anti-capitalist, has been pasted to the municipal noticeboard. Yet this bellwether town is a pointer to how the French will vote in the election on April 22nd and May 6th: at every poll since 1981, it has gone for the winner.

In 1981 Donzy backed François Mitterrand, a Socialist. In 2007 it swung behind Nicolas Sarkozy, on the Gaullist right. This time the little town, encircled by wheat fields and home to factories making plastic straws and umbrellas, looks likely to back François Hollande, the Socialist. “My bet is that Donzy will vote Hollande,” says Jean-Paul Jacob, the (independent) centre-right mayor. This is not out of enthusiasm for the man, as “people find him cold, there’s no fervour about him.” Rather, the mayor thinks, it reflects disappointment with Mr Sarkozy. “His personality”, he says wryly, “doesn’t leave people indifferent.”

(...)

It is perhaps natural that the French should want change. The Gaullists, under Mr Sarkozy and his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, have held the presidency since 1995. Right across Europe in the euro-zone crisis, incumbents have been unseated by disgruntled voters. The French are fearful and restless and want something different. But the prospect of Mr Sarkozy’s defeat is still a remarkable one, in many ways. Unlike Mr Giscard d’Estaing, who had to run against Mr Chirac as well as facing Mitterrand, he has no centre-right rival. And he can reasonably claim to be the sort of authoritative leader to whom voters might turn in a crisis. Indeed, polls suggest the French rate Mr Sarkozy more highly than Mr Hollande for most traits to do with leadership. He scores better for having “the authority of a head of state” (54%, next to 23% for Mr Holland