SURGE in turnout in France so far. Turnout at 5pm is 59% of registered voters (orange line). That's already higher than the *overall* turnout in the 2012, 2017, and 2022 elections. (Note: polls projected this; not necessarily indicative of a surprise in overall vote share.)

As Obama showed, surging turnout is not a long-term solution without delivering on policy.

Whaaaaaat - voting on a WEEKEND? When people actually have time to themselves??? It's almost as if the goal is to maximize voter turnout, for cryin' out loud!!!

So, this is good for democracy, of course. Also, concretely, what this means is that there'll be a TON of districts that'll end up with 3-way runoffs rather than 2-ways (because that's index to runoffs). That makes it trickier to beat far-right... unless candidates drop out.