To be shit scared about the French elections

[brexitstolemyfuture]

Recent events could of given her a big boost, I'm getting pretty worried :(

Anyone in on the ground to reassure?

Twitter killed off the Duke of Edinburgh a couple of days ago...

Will have to wait and see.

Wow! Yes, I just Googled her and nothing came up either!

But if you search 'french mp died', it does appear...

There are lots of reports oh her death, sadly, including in Le Monde, if you google her name.

www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2017/05/06/mort-de-corinne-erhel-deputee-socialiste-des-cotes-d-armor_5123309_3382.html

What's Le Monde?

Ah thanks, yep just found it - she's an MP called Corinne Erhel. It's so sad :(

Le Monde is a French paper Terfel - probably the French equivalent of The Times or the Telegraph.

Oh no.

And that Le Monde article says she was only 50. Died on Friday evening.

Ah, I got her name wrong, that's why the search didn't work. I do apologize. I was copying from memory.

65%! Fantastic, what a relief.

Wonder if this will shake May a bit. Probably not. Good news anyway.

Why is everyone so certain he's won? The votes haven't finished being counted yet?

Terfing it's because the type of 'exit poll', if we can call it that, that they have on the night of the presidential election has been refined and tweaked so much over the years that it manages to accurately reflect the final result of the vote.

Here's some information about the accuracy of French polls - www.economist.com/news/21717338-nationalist-leader-still-unlikely-become-president-france-polls-are-still-reliable.

They count votes much quicker in France because each constituency is pretty small and there are no ticks or crosses or marks to interpret, just pieces of paper in envelopes to sort and count.

The 8pm result is based on real votes counted at polling stations that have already closed and finished their count, not exit polls like in the UK. Those are then used as a sample of the rest of the country.

The result is a sophisticated extrapolation of a number of sample results. These are counted quickily, and then adjusted to reflect the nationwide poll. There is still an margin for error but much less than declarative exit polls.