Prior to the May 7th election that elected far left socialist Francois Hollande as France’s president – ousting Nicolas Sarkozy – there was widespread agreement that Hollande would garner a majority of the Muslim vote. Islam versus Europe reported that 95% of Muslims voted Socialist in the last French Presidential Elections. The results were somewhat close with Hollande receiving 51.7% of the vote and Sarkozy 48.3%.

Last week, the Washington Post reported on the likelihood of Hollande benefiting from the Muslim vote:

They are France’s millions-strong minority with a voice that usually falls silent at election time. But this year, there is a special new effort to mobilize French Muslims to speak up at the ballot box in Sunday’s presidential race — amid a surge of Islam-bashing among the French right.

Imams and Islamic associations are calling on Muslims to do their duty as citizens and go to the polls. And while they’re not officially endorsing anyone, the call itself is a bold move in a country where statistics on religious affiliation are formally banned and where secularism is enshrined in the constitution.

Socialist Francois Hollande — the poll favorite — is more likely to benefit from the get-out-the-vote push, because conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has spoken out against Muslim practices in his campaign and experts say that Muslims in poor neighborhoods and Muslim youth tend to vote for the left. But the Muslim vote is diverse, and there’s no guarantee that the push will bring out voters, since Muslims have tended in the past to avoid politics.

Check out these images from election night, via Islam versus Europe:

Click here to see the Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, and Palestinian flags on full, celebratory display.

A few questions…..

Wasn’t Hitler a socialist? After all, “Nazi” = National Socialist Party.

Didn’t Hitler control France for a time?

Didn’t the Muslims align with Hitler during WWII?

Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the upcoming book, Unsung Davids