Presidential elections were held in France on 21 and 22 April 2007 to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France (and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra) for a five-year term. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 5 and 6 May 2007 between the two leading candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Sarkozy was elected with 53% of the vote.
Sarkozy and Royal both represented a generational change. Both main candidates were born after World War II, along with the first to have seen adulthood under the Fifth Republic, and the first not to have been in politics under Charles de Gaulle. In addition, Royal was the first woman in France's history to reach the second round in a presidential election.
The election result has been interpreted as an example of center squeeze, a kind of spoiler effect common to the plurality-rule family of voting rules, since Sarkozy, a conservative, and Royal, a socialist, eliminated moderate liberal François Bayrou in the first round, despite polls showing a majority of voters preferred Bayrou in a one-on-one match with either of his opponents.
Sarkozy ran for re-election in 2012, but was defeated by Royal's lifelong partner at the time, François Hollande. Since the death of Lionel Jospin in 2026, it is the earliest French presidential election in which either of the second round candidates is still alive.
Presidential elections were held in France on 21 and 22 April 2007 to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France (and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra) for a five-year term. As no candidate received a majority of the vote, a second round was held on 5 and 6 May 2007 between the two leading candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal. Sarkozy was elected with 53% of the vote.
Sarkozy and Royal both represented a generational change. Both main candidates were born after World War II, along with the first to have seen adulthood under the Fifth Republic, and the first not to have been in politics under Charles de Gaulle. In addition, Royal was the first woman in France's history to reach the second round in a presidential election.
The election result has been interpreted as an example of center squeeze, a kind of spoiler effect common to the plurality-rule family of voting rules, since Sarkozy, a conservative, and Royal, a socialist, eliminated moderate liberal François Bayrou in the first round, despite polls showing a majority of voters preferred Bayrou in a one-on-one match with either of his opponents.
Sarkozy ran for re-election in 2012, but was defeated by Royal's lifelong partner at the time, François Hollande. Since the death of Lionel Jospin in 2026, it is the earliest French presidential election in which either of the second round candidates is still alive.
16 March 2007 – 18:00 (16:00 UTC): Deadline for candidates to have obtained the 500 sponsors from elected officials in at least 30 different departments or overseas territories which are required to run for president.
19 March 2007 – 17:30 (15:30 UTC): Official candidate list was announced by the Constitutional Council: 12 candidates.
22 April 2007: First round of voting took place in Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, Réunion, Mayotte, Metropolitan France, and in voting offices in embassies and consulates in Oceania, Asia, Africa and Europe – the last polling stations closed in the large cities of Metropolitan France at 8 pm local time (18:00 UTC) and publication of the first exit polls were allowed immediately after they closed.
25 April 2007: Official results of the first round announced.
27 April 2007: Official candidate list for second round announced.
2 May 2007 – 21:00 (19:00 UTC): Nationally televised debate between the two candidates.
6 May 2007: Second round of voting took place in Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, Réunion, Mayotte, Metropolitan France, and in voting offices in embassies and consulates in Oceania, Asia, Africa and Europe – the last polling stations closed in the large cities of Metropolitan France at 8 pm local time (18:00 UTC) and publication of the first exit polls were allowed immediately after they closed.
10 May 2007: Official results of the second round announced.
16 May 2007 – Midnight (22:00 UTC): Expiration of the term of president Jacques Chirac.
Electoral system
For the first time in a presidential election, electronic voting was introduced in some areas, having been authorised in 2004. They were introduced in only 82 of 36,000 voting districts, and were criticised by a number of people, both on the left and on the right. A petition against them has also been made (see Wikinews:Electronic voting disputed in France).
Using the three colours of the national flag (blue, white, and red) on electoral advertisements or partisan documentation was prohibited by electoral regulations. Ségolène Royal contended that the book Ensemble ("together") published by Nicolas Sarkozy, whose cover is blue, white and red, was effectively an electoral partisan documentation and should have been covered by this prohibition.
All candidates had to be of French nationality and at least 23 years old (the same requirement as for the candidates to the National Assembly).
Candidates must obtain signatures from 500 elected officials (mayors, members of Parliament, elected representatives) supporting their candidacy. These signatures from elected officials (informally known in French as parrainages, but legally known as "presentations") must be from at least 30 departments or overseas territories, and no more than 10 percent can be from any individual department. A presentation from an elected official does not imply the official supports the policies of the candidate, but rather that this official considers the candidate to be a serious candidate.
Candidates must also submit a statement with details of their personal assets.
The Constitutional Council published the official candidate list on 20 March 2007. The candidates were listed in a randomised order. This order was used for the official campaign: thus, posters for Olivier Besancenot were to always be displayed on the No. 1 board, those for Marie-George Buffet on the No. 2 board, etc., regardless of where in France the boards were located.
There were 12 candidates for the 2007 election.
Leading candidates
Four candidates consistently registered over 10% in the opinion polls and were regarded as having a reasonable chance of reaching the second round.
Ségolène Royal was selected by the Socialist Party on 17 November 2006 to be the party's candidate for the election. She won 60.6% of the votes in a ballot of party members to choose their candidate, against 20.8% for Dominique Strauss-Kahn and 18.5% for Laurent Fabius. She was the first woman to represent a major French party in a presidential contest.
Jean-Marie Le Pen ran for the National Front, a far-right party which promotes policies of strong law enforcement, economic protectionism and strong measures to control immigration. As during previous presidential campaigns, Le Pen raised the question of whether he would be able to obtain the necessary 500 signatures on a number of occasions, which he claims is the result of pressure placed on elected officials by the major parties to support their own candidate (he has often claimed, during past elections, that "political elites" have sabotaged his campaigns); however, on 14 March 2007 his party said that he had obtained the necessary signatures.
Other candidates
These were the eight other candidates who obtained the required 500 signatures from elected officials to endorse their candidacy.
President Jacques Chirac announced on 11 March 2007 that he would not be standing for another term as president. It had been rumoured that President Chirac was considering running for a third term, following statements he made at the beginning of 2007, including his New Year's Address on 31 December 2006, and subsequent speeches which contained robust comments on international policy and detailed national policy proposals with a suggested five-year timetable. In March, Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy. There was no provision at the time in the Constitution of 1958 specifying a limited number of terms, though a third term would have been unprecedented under the Fifth Republic.
Christine Boutin announced that she would not be a candidate for the election and pledged her support for Nicolas Sarkozy (source: France 2 news, 2 December 2006).
Rachid Kaci, member of the UMP and President of the group Free Right (la Droite Libre), announced his withdrawal as candidate and also pledged to support Nicolas Sarkozy on 21 December 2006 during a UMP public Forum.
MRC chairman Jean-Pierre Chevènement announced on 10 December 2006 that he would not be running, and that his movement would back Ségolène Royal in return for an electoral agreement in the 2007 general election.
Candidate for the Radical Party, Christiane Taubira in the 2002 election, confirmed that she would not be running following an electoral agreement between her party and the Socialist Party. The Left Radicals in return supported Ségolène Royal.
Nicolas Hulot, television presenter and environmental activist, was widely considered to be a possible candidate following the positive media and public reaction to his recent book and Environmental Charter. On 3 January 2007 Le Figaro newspaper reported that supporters of Hulot had begun gathering signatures to mount a campaign and a website, was created to generate support. On 22 January he announced that he would not be a candidate.
Corinne Lepage, environmentalist politician and activist, withdrew her candidacy in favour of Bayrou on 10 March 2007.
Roland Castro, architect and "utopian left" activist, withdrew his candidacy on 12 March 2007.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan: former member of Union for a Popular Movement, announced on RTL radio on 10 January 2007 that he had obtained approximately 310 promises for signatures to validate his candidacy and intended to stand on a 'sovereigntist' platform, against further European integration through the EU.
Nicolas Miguet : right-wing businessman, press publisher and tax protester, he was accused of running a scam in order to obtain the 500 endorsements. He was arrested and freed on bail. Announced that he would support François Bayrou.