2017 French legislative election, Parties, Socialist Party (PS) and allies
Hamon himself chose to support candidates running against prominent reformists invested by the Socialist Party, backing Michel Nouaille of the French Communist Party (PCF) against former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, whom he defeated in the presidential primary; the feminist Caroline de Haas of EELV/PCF against Myriam El Khomri, namesake of her labour law; Philippe Rio of the PCF against Malek Boutih, a Socialist running under the banner of the presidential majority (having been denied an investiture) who violently denounced Hamon as a candidate who would "resonate with a fringe Islamic-leftist"; and Salah Amokrane of the EELV against Gérard Bapt, who made a controversial trip to Syria with three other parliamentarians in 2015.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, Socialist Party (PS) and allies
In an interview on 22 May, Cambadélis envisaged a potential renaming of the PS, stating that the party should "refound, reformulate, and restructure" to respond to the demand for the "renewal, social justice and ecology", after previously resisting the idea in 2014 when the possibility was mentioned by Valls while Prime Minister.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
In exchange for the withdrawal of ecologist candidate Yannick Jadot in the presidential election in favor of Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon in February, the PS agreed to reserve 42 constituencies for the EELV (including all those of its outgoing deputies), and the accord was formally approved by EELV on 19 April. The agreement also provided that the EELV did not present candidates in 53 constituencies.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
The investiture of former housing minister Cécile Duflot was maintained despite the opposition of mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, as was that of Sergio Coronado, who supported Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the presidential election; however, he nevertheless faced a Socialist candidate in the legislative elections. Many of the remaining constituencies are those of Socialist deputies who backed Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
On 15 May, the EELV revealed its list of candidates for the legislative elections, investing 459 candidates (228 men and 231 women) and supporting 52 Socialists, 16 Communists, and François Ruffin under the banner of la France Insoumise. From the ranks of the party's leaders, national secretary David Cormand presented himself in Seine-Maritime's 4th, deputy national secretary Sandrine Rousseau in Pas-de-Calais's 9th, and spokesperson Julien Bayou in Paris's 5th.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, French Communist Party (PCF)
Though the French Communist Party (PCF) formally supported the candidacy of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the presidential election, it still ran its own candidates in the legislative elections. After Mélenchon's defeat in the first round of the presidential election, Pierre Laurent once again called for an alliance with la France Insoumise. Negotiations between the two failed to produce an agreement, and on 9 May la France Insoumise announced that it would continue on in the legislative elections without allying with the PCF.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, French Communist Party (PCF)
PCF candidates who sponsored the candidacy of Mélenchon in the presidential election did not face any opposing candidate from la France Insoumise. The PCF and FI were face-to-face in almost all constituencies, with the PCF planning to invest 535 candidates and FI almost as many, though the possibility of a withdrawal from 20 or so constituencies remained. On 16 May, the PCF published a list of 484 candidates invested in the legislative elections, refraining from appearing in a number of constituencies in favor of candidates from la France Insoumise, EELV, PS, or Ensemble! (Clémentine Autain). According to the PCF, 40% of its candidates are younger than 50, and 20% younger than 40, with an average age of 51; a quarter are retired, 26% employees, 20% civil servants, and 7% manual workers. PCF candidates are campaigning under the label of "PCF–Front de Gauche".


2017 French legislative election, Parties, Debout la France (DLF)
Debout la France (Arise France; abbreviated as DLF), led by former presidential candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, intended to present candidates in all 577 constituencies; despite Dupont-Aignan's support of Le Pen in the second round, he reiterated that DLF candidates would face those of the FN, and the national council of Debout la France stated on 13 May that it would invest candidates in almost all constituencies, negotiations with the FN having failed upon the issue of joint investitures.


2017 French legislative election, Parties, Others
Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle; abbreviated as LO) presented candidates in 553 constituencies, with 539 in metropolitan France, six in Réunion, four in Martinique, and four in Guadeloupe; presidential candidate Nathalie Arthaud contested Seine-Saint-Denis's 6th constituency, where she received 3% in the 2012 legislative elections. In terms of financing, the party accumulated some €2 million to cover costs. The New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) was unlikely to present candidates in the legislative elections due to the potentially high cost for the party, as campaign expenses are reimbursed only if a party's candidates attain 1% in at least 50 constituencies. Mouvement 100%, a coalition of 28 parties, including the Independent Ecological Alliance (AEI), planned to present candidates in all 577 constituencies. The Popular Republican Union (UPR) of François Asselineau planned to present candidates in all 577 constituencies, with 574 ultimately invested.


2017 French legislative election, Results, First round
Four deputies were elected in the first round: Sylvain Maillard (LREM) in Paris's 1st, Paul Molac (LREM) in Morbihan's 4th, Napole Polutele (DVG) in Wallis and Futuna's 1st, and Stéphane Demilly of the UDI in Somme's 5th constituencies.


2017 French legislative election, Results, First round
In the remaining 573 constituencies, it was determined that there would be 572 two-way contests in the second round, and only one three-way contest (triangulaire), in Aube's 1st constituency, involving LREM, LR, and the FN.


2017 French legislative election, Results, First round
In Aveyron's 2nd constituency, the candidate of the Republicans later withdrew and backed that of LREM.


2017 French legislative election, Results, First round, Electorate
Because the Ministry of the Interior did not report results separately for EELV, the "total vote" percentage listed below is for all ecologist candidates.


2017 French legislative election, Results, First round, Maps
Identification of two-way and three-way contests in the second round, together with seats taken in the first round and second-round seats subsequently declared by acclamation


2017 French legislative election, Results, Results by constituency
* Outgoing deputy not seeking re-election** Outgoing substitute, attached deputy seeking re-election*** Outgoing PS deputies who failed to secure their party's investiture and running for re-election without label


2017 French legislative election, Aftermath
In the aftermath of the legislative elections, the split between Macron-compatible "constructives" within the Republicans (LR) and the rest of the party re-emerged. On 21 June, Thierry Solère announced the creation of a new common group in the National Assembly with the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) likely to contain the 18 UDI deputies and about 15 LR.


2017 French legislative election, Aftermath
The formation of two parliamentary groups on the right represented a symbolic divorce to the two threads on the right (the moderates and the hardliners) and the end of the old Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) which had been created in 2002 to unite the right and centre. The French Communist Party (PCF), la France Insoumise (FI), Socialist Party (PS), La République En Marche! (LREM), and Democratic Movement (MoDem) also sought to form separate parliamentary groups.


2017 French legislative election, Aftermath
The legislative elections were followed on 19 June by the conclusion of the Philippe I government by courtesy and reappointment of Édouard Philippe as Prime Minister; though usually a formality, the formation of the Philippe II government was complicated by the ongoing affair regarding alleged improprieties in the employment practices of MoDem officials in the European Parliament and elsewhere.


2017 French legislative election, Aftermath
The request of Minister of the Armed Forces Sylvie Goulard to leave the government on 20 June was soon followed by the announcement on 21 June that both Minister of Justice François Bayrou and Minister in charge of European Affairs Marielle de Sarnez would depart the government, the two being the remaining MoDem officials within the government.


2017 French legislative election, Aftermath
In the reshuffle, Richard Ferrand, implicated in allegations of nepotism regarding a property sale, was transferred from his post in government as Minister of Territorial Cohesion as planned president of the LREM group in the National Assembly, and likewise for de Sarnez with the newly created MoDem group. Despite these changes, the MoDem remained within the government, with the announcement of the Philippe II government on 21 June. The Socialist group was ultimately refounded as the "New Left" (NG), and Marc Fesneau was elected president of the MoDem group.


2017 French legislative election, Aftermath, Vote of confidence
In the vote of confidence in the new government on 4 July 2017, 370 voted in favor, 67 opposed, and 129 abstained, representing a record level of abstention and the lowest level of opposition since 1959.


2017 French motorcycle Grand Prix
The 2017 French motorcycle Grand Prix was the fifth round of the 2017 MotoGP season. It was held at the Bugatti Circuit in Le Mans on May 21, 2017.


2017 French motorcycle Grand Prix, MotoGP race report
Yamaha riders clean swept the front row of the grid for the first time since the 2008 Qatar Grand Prix. Teammates Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi fought for the victory throughout, with the Italian crashing out for the final lap, and Viñales taking his third win for Yamaha in five races. Johann Zarco scored his first podium finish and became the first French rider in the MotoGP class to stand on the podium since Randy de Puniet in the 2009 British Grand Prix.


2017 French motorcycle Grand Prix, Classification, Moto3
The race, scheduled to be run for 24 laps, was red-flagged due to oil being spilled onto the track resulting to a multiple rider crash in turn 4. The race was later restarted over 16 laps.


2017 French motorcycle Grand Prix, Championship standings after the race, MotoGP
Below are the standings for the top five riders and constructors after round five has concluded.


2017 French presidential election
The 2017 French presidential election was held on 23 April and 7 May 2017. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held between the top two candidates, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! (EM) and Marine Le Pen of the National Front (FN), which Macron won by a decisive margin. The presidential election was followed by a legislative election to elect members of the National Assembly on 11 and 18 June.


2017 French presidential election
Incumbent President François Hollande of the Socialist Party (PS) was eligible to run for a second term, but declared on 1 December 2016 that he would not seek reelection in light of low approval ratings, making him the first incumbent head of state of the Fifth Republic not to seek reelection.


2017 French presidential election
François Fillon of The Republicans (LR)—after winning the party's first open primary—and Marine Le Pen of the National Front led first-round opinion polls in November 2016 and mid-January 2017. Polls tightened considerably by late January; after the publication of revelations that Fillon employed family members in possibly fictitious jobs in a series of politico-financial affairs that came to be colloquially known as "Penelopegate", Macron overtook Fillon to place consistently second in first-round polling. At the same time, Benoît Hamon won the Socialist primary, entering fourth place in the polls. After strong debate performances, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise (FI) rose significantly in polls in late March, overtaking Hamon to place just below Fillon.


2017 French presidential election
The first round was held under a state of emergency that was declared following the November 2015 Paris attacks. Following the result of the first round, Macron and Le Pen continued to the 7 May runoff. It was the first time since 2002 that a National Front candidate continued to the second round and the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that the runoff did not include a nominee of the traditional left or right parties; their combined share of the vote from eligible voters, at approximately 26%, was also a historic low.


2017 French presidential election
Estimations of the result of the second round on 7 May indicated that Macron had been elected by a decisive margin; Le Pen immediately conceded defeat. After the Interior Ministry published preliminary results, the official result of the second round was proclaimed by the Constitutional Council on 10 May. Overall, 43.6% of the registered electorate voted for Macron; in 2002, by contrast, two-thirds of eligible voters voted against then-FN candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. When Macron took office on 14 May, he became the youngest holder of the presidency in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. He named Édouard Philippe as Prime Minister the next day. The initial government was assembled on 17 May; a legislative election on 11 and 18 June gave En Marche! a substantial majority.


2017 French presidential election, Background
The President of the French Republic is elected to a five-year term in a two-round election under Article 7 of the Constitution: if no candidate secures an absolute majority of votes in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later between the two candidates who received the most votes. In 2017, the first and second rounds were held 23 April and 7 May.


2017 French presidential election, Background
Each presidential candidate must meet a specific set of requirements in order to run. They must be a French citizen of at least 18 years old. It is also necessary for candidates to be on an electoral roll, proving their eligibility to vote.


2017 French presidential election, Background
To be listed on the first-round ballot, candidates must secure 500 signatures (often referred to as parrainages) from national or local elected officials from at least 30 different departments or overseas collectivities, with no more than a tenth of these signatories from any single department. The official signature collection period followed the publication of the Journal officiel on 25 February to 17 March. The collection period had initially been scheduled to begin on 23 February, but a visit by Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to China on that date forced a delay.


2017 French presidential election, Background
French prefectures mailed sponsorship forms to the 42,000 elected officials eligible to give their signature to a candidate, which must then be delivered to the Constitutional Council for validation. Unlike in previous years, a list of validated signatures was posted on Tuesday and Thursday of every week on the Council's website; in the past, signatories were published only after the official candidate list had been verified after the end of the collection period. The end of the signature collection period also marked the deadline for the declaration of personal assets required of prospective candidates. The final list of candidates was declared on 21 March.


2017 French presidential election, Background
The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) ensured that all candidates receive equal time in broadcast media "under comparable programming conditions" from 19 March onward. The CSA warned on 8 March that the amount of speaking time broadcasters had given Fillon and his supporters was "unusually high", even given the unusual circumstances surrounding his candidacy. After the official start of the campaign on 10 April, the CSA strictly enforced equal time in broadcast media. Campaigning for the first round of the election ended at midnight on 21 April, two days before the vote.


2017 French presidential election, Background
The Constitutional Council verified the results of the first round between the 24–26 April and officially certified the vote tallies on 26 April, with the same procedure being used for the second round. The new President of the French Republic was set to be proclaimed on 11 May and undergo their investiture ceremony on 14 May at the latest.


2017 French presidential election, Candidates
On 18 March 2017, the Constitutional Council published the names of the 11 candidates who received 500 valid sponsorships, with the order of the list determined by drawing lots.


2017 French presidential election, Candidates
When Le Pen, a lawyer by occupation, stood in the 2012 presidential election, she came in third with 17.90% of first-round votes. She rose within the ranks of the National Front (FN), founded and previously led by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, culminating in a bitter leadership struggle which she won in 2011. Her campaign programme prioritised the national interests of France and an exit from the eurozone, emphasising her party's traditional concern about security and immigration, as well as socioeconomic issues and the sovereignty of the French state, on matters of currency, borders, the economy and rule of law. Her campaign was punctuated by judicial inquiries into her party and personal associates.


2017 French presidential election, Candidates, Sponsorships
A candidate must secure 500 signatures from elected officials in order to appear on the first-round ballot, with the signature collection period ending on 17 March. The table below lists sponsorships received by the Constitutional Council by candidate.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Socialist Party (PS)
The 2017 presidential election was the first in the history of the Fifth Republic in which a sitting president did not seek a second term. On 1 December 2016, incumbent president François Hollande, acknowledging his low approval ratings, announced he would not seek a second term. His then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared on 5 December 2016 that he would run in the Socialist primary on 22 January 2017, but he was defeated by Benoît Hamon in its second round on 29 January.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Democratic Movement (MoDem)
François Bayrou, the three-time centrist presidential candidate and leader of the Democratic Movement (MoDem) – who came fourth in 2002, third in 2007, and fifth in 2012 – initially supported the candidacy of Alain Juppé in the primary of the right against his long-time adversary Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he vowed to run against if he won the primary.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Democratic Movement (MoDem)
However, Fillon's victory in the primary – which saw the elimination of Sarkozy in the first round and the defeat of Juppé in the runoff – led Bayrou to reconsider lodging a bid for the presidency, despite his 2014 election promise during his successful mayoral campaign in Pau that he would not seek the presidency if he won. After an extended period of suspense, he finally announced on 22 February that he would not run for a fourth time, instead proposing a conditional alliance with Emmanuel Macron, who accepted his offer.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
On 9 July 2016, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV) announced that it would hold a primary election before the 2017 presidential election. Those wishing to be nominated required the support of 36 of its "federal councilors" out of 240; nominations were open to individuals in civic society as well. The vote was open to both party members as well as sympathizers who could register to vote in the primary. The announcement came just days after prominent environmentalist Nicolas Hulot's surprise declaration that he would not offer himself as a presidential candidate on 5 July.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
EELV were the first party to hold a presidential primary for the 2017 election, with two rounds held on 19 October and 7 November 2016. It was contested by deputy, former Minister of Territorial Equality and Housing, and ex-party leader Cécile Duflot, as well as three MEPs – Karima Delli, Yannick Jadot, and Michèle Rivasi.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
Duflot was considered the early favorite, though she initially opposed holding a primary, aware of the risk that she might lose it; and highlighted her experience in government. Her main proposal was to incorporate the fight against climate change into the Constitution. Jadot was perceived as her main challenger; elected as an MEP in 2009, he worked with Greenpeace France from 2002 to 2008, specializing in transatlantic trade and climate issues. With Thomas Piketty and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he sought a "primary of all the left", which failed to materialize.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
He rejected the "candidacy awaited by the political-media world" – that of Duflot, among others – and represented an anti-Duflot force from the party's right wing. Rivasi only barely managed to qualify for the primary, earlier lacking the necessary sponsorships. Like Jadot, she represented the radical wing of the party – albeit on its left flank – and served as deputy for Drôme from 1997 to 2002 and led Greenpeace France from 2003 to 2004. Delli, the daughter of Algerian immigrants, first became involved in politics as part of collective movements, and sought to become an MEP in 2009 after a stint as parliamentary assistant to Marie-Christine Blandin. Also of the party's left-wing, she declared that she would defend a "popular ecology".


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
Jadot and Rivasi advanced to the runoff after scoring 35.61% and 30.16%, respectively, in the first round; the other two candidates were eliminated, with Duflot garnering 24.41% and Delli 9.82%. Jadot won the second round of the primary on 7 November, obtaining 54.25% of the vote against Rivasi's 40.75%, becoming the nominee of the EELV in the presidential election. Jadot, who claimed 496 sponsorships just before the opening of the collection period, withdrew his candidacy on 23 February and endorsed Hamon, the pair having agreed on a common platform.


2017 French presidential election, Non-candidates, Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV)
An online vote among EELV primary voters from 24 and 26 February was required to confirm the agreement; an earlier vote to open talks with Hamon and Mélenchon was approved by 89.7% of those electors. The Hamon–Jadot alliance was consummated on 26 February; among those who cast a vote, 79.53% voted to support it, with 15.39% opposed and 5.08% submitting blank ballots, and an overall voter turnout of 55.25% (9,433 votes). This marks the first election since 1969 without a green candidate.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
After his loss as the nominee of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) in the 2012 presidential election, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to return to being a "Frenchman among the French". However, he announced on 19 September 2014 that he would seek the presidency of the party, a position he secured in an online vote on 29 November online vote with the backing of 64.50% of party members, against his main opponent Bruno Le Maire's 29.18%. He succeeded the triumvirate of Alain Juppé, François Fillon, and Jean-Pierre Raffarin, which assumed the party's leadership after the resignation of Jean-François Copé.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
Sarkozy was initially reluctant to accept the idea of holding a right-wing primary for the 2017 presidential election, but on 25 September 2014 he declared his support for a primary of the right after a warning from Juppé, who on 20 August made public his intention to run for the nomination.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
The rules of the primary were confirmed in April 2015, scheduling the first round of an open primary for 20 November 2016, with a runoff on 27 November if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote. Those wishing to vote were required to pay €2 per ballot and sign a charter indicating their adherence to "Republican values of the right and centre".


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
In order to appear on the ballot, prospective candidates needed to present sponsorships from 250 elected officials, including at least 20 parliamentarians from at least 30 departments, with no more than a tenth from the same department, in addition to the signatures of at least 2,500 party members across at least 15 departments, with no more than a tenth from the same department. The charter permitted other parties wishing to participate to set their own sponsorship requirements.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
The High Authority ultimately determined that seven candidates qualified to compete in the open primary of the right and centre: Fillon, Juppé, Le Maire, Copé, Sarkozy, and Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet of the Republicans, the party's name after May 2015, as well as Jean-Frédéric Poisson of the Christian Democratic Party (PCD), who was not required to present signatures as the leader of another party. The National Centre of Independents and Peasants (CNIP) were also allowed to participate, but not to present a candidate.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
The primary was initially fought primarily between Juppé and Sarkozy, the top two candidates in primary polls. Sarkozy's program emphasized the themes of Islam, immigration, security, and defense. He proposed to end family reunifications and reform the right to birthright citizenship, halt the flow of economic migrants, and increase residence requirements to secure French nationality. He reaffirmed his interest in the "assimilation" of immigrants, and intended to ban other menus for school canteens (i.e., options for Muslim students) as well as Muslim headscarves at universities.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
Sarkozy also suggested that radical imams be expelled and suspected terrorists be detained by authorities and tried by a special anti-terrorist court, in addition a reduction in the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. He proposed to postpone the increase the retirement age to 64 until 2024, permit exemptions to the 35-hour workweek, cut 300,000 civil service jobs by increasing working hours to 37 per week, and abolish the wealth tax (ISF). Like Le Maire, he did not rule out the possibility of a referendum on the European Union (EU). He also sought a European treaty "refounding", the creation of a European monetary fund, to commit 2% to defense spending by 2025, and to reduce public spending by €100 billion and taxes by €40 billion while reducing the budget deficit to under 3% of GDP.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
In contrast to Sarkozy, Juppé spoke of a "happy identity" and emphasized the importance of integration as opposed to assimilation. He supported drawing up a common list of "safe countries" to differentiate refugees from economic migrants, setting a "quota" on immigrants as necessary, and to stop providing foreign aid to countries refusing to comply with their obligation to accept deported citizens. He questioned Sarkozy's proposals on Schengen and instead merely acknowledged that it was not functioning correctly, but concurred with him in exempting the acquisition of French nationality by foreigners at the age of 18 if previously convicted.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
Juppé also demanded transparency on the funding of places of worship, civic training for imams, and, unlike Sarkozy, favored allowing women to wear the Muslim headscarf at universities. On economic issues, he proposed to end the 35-hour workweek, abolish the wealth tax, reduce corporate taxation, and set the retirement age at 65. He also pledged to slash in half the number of parliamentarians, renegotiate Schengen, and increase defense spending in absolute terms by at least €7 billion by 2022.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
After several strong debate performances by Fillon, however, a second-round Juppé–Sarkozy duel no longer appeared inevitable. Fillon's rise was propelled by his proposals for a rigorous economic program. Seeking €100 billion in cuts, he proposed eliminating 500,000 civil service jobs by 2022 and a return to the 39-hour workweek for civil servants. Like the other primary candidates, he planned to eliminate the wealth tax; in addition, Fillon suggested abolishing the 35-hour workweek – capping it at the 48-hour maximum allowed within the EU – and the implementation of other liberal economic measures.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
He also adopted a staunchly conservative social program, opposing adoption by same-sex couples and arguing France had no religious problem apart from Islam itself. Like Sarkozy, he sought to expand the capacity of French prisons, but unlike his former superior, he opposed banning religious symbols in public places. He also professed a more pro-Russian stance than other candidates, urging cooperation in Syria against the Islamic State and supporting the "pragmatism" of Vladimir Putin's intervention in the Syrian civil war.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, The Republicans (LR)
The first round of the primary on 20 November saw the unexpected elimination of Sarkozy, with Fillon coming in first with 44.1%, Juppé at 28.6%, and Sarkozy at 20.7% of the vote, and all other candidates far behind. A second round between Fillon and Juppé was confirmed, and Sarkozy announced that he would vote for his former Prime Minister soon after the results became clear. Fillon scored a landslide victory in the 27 November runoff with 66.5% of the vote to Juppé's 33.5% and became the Republicans' nominee; voter turnout – at 4.4 million – was even higher than in the first round.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
At the 2012 Toulouse Congress, the Socialist Party (PS) modified its statutes to guarantee the selection of a candidate of the left through open primaries, with the National Council of the Socialist Party announcing the timetable and organization of the primaries at least one year beforehand. On 11 January, Libération published an editorial in favor of a "primary of the left and ecologists", and on 9 April the National Council of the Socialist Party unanimously approved the idea of holding such a primary in early December.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
On 18 June, the National Council finally confirmed that it would organize a primary to select a candidate for the 2017 presidential election. Applications could be submitted from 1 to 15 December, with two rounds of voting planned for 22 and 29 January 2017.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
Prospective PS candidates were required to sign the primary's charter of ethics requiring candidates to rally behind its winner and to secure the support of 5% of one of the following groups: members of the National Council; Socialist parliamentarians, regional and departmental Socialist councilors in at least 4 regions and 10 departments; or Socialist mayors representing more than 10,000 people in at least 4 regions and 10 departments. The conditions for becoming a candidate of other member parties of the BAP – the PRG, UDE, PE, and Democratic Front (FD) – were determined by the respective parties' leadership.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
The EELV declared on 20 June that it would not participate in the primary, and the French Communist Party (PCF) did likewise the following day. After declaring his candidacy for the presidential election, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche! also declined to participate, as did Jean-Luc Mélenchon under the banner of la France Insoumise, saying that he did not want to run in a primary with François Hollande since he would not be able to support Hollande if he won.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
He later reaffirmed this by saying that with the exclusion of the EELV and PRG the primary was not truly "of the left" but a "primary of the Socialist Party". On 1 December, Hollande declared that he would not seek a second term, becoming the first President of the Fifth Republic to renounce a reelection bid. His announcement reflected his high personal unpopularity and resentment among Socialist colleagues regarding remarks he made about cabinet members and other associates in the book Un président ne devrait pas dire ça... (A president should not say that...) by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, journalists at Le Monde.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
On 17 December, the High Authority declared that seven candidates qualified to appear on the ballot: four from the Socialist Party – former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, Arnaud Montebourg, Benoît Hamon, and Vincent Peillon – and François de Rugy of the PE, Sylvia Pinel of the PRG, and Jean-Luc Bennahmias of the PD. Early opinion polling placed Valls and Montebourg first and second, respectively, with Hamon a close third.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
Shortly after declaring his candidacy on 5 December, Valls proposed to abolish article 49.3 of the French constitution, a procedure that allows bypassing legislative approval, in a "democratic renaissance"; as Prime Minister, he invoked it on six occasions, using it to pass the Macron and El Khomri laws.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
He also proposed a 2.5% increase in public spending while keeping the budget deficit under 3%, guaranteeing a "decent income" of €800, reducing the gender pay gap by half, pausing the enlargement of the European Union, appending a charter of secularism to the Constitution, consolidating the nuclear industry, and mandating six months of civic service. He was twice physically attacked during the primary campaign: on 22 December, he was flour-bombed by a protester in Strasbourg saying "we do not forget [the 49.3]! ", and on 17 January, he was slapped by a young Breton regionalist in Lamballe, who was subsequently charged.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
Former Minister of the Economy Arnaud Montebourg, a Socialist rebel known for promoting "made in France", presented a firmly left-wing project shortly after declaring his candidacy in August 2016. He promised to offer French enterprises preference in bidding, reverse the 2011 tax increases on the French middle class, and repeal most of the El Khomri labor law while preserving certain "interesting" social protections such as the "right to disconnect" and "personal activity account".


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
Critical of European austerity, he declared that he would defy the requirement to maintain a budget deficit under 3% of GDP and intended to strengthen intelligence services, require six months of civic service, and achieve gender equality. He also proposed €30 billion in spending to stimulate economic growth, lower the general social contribution (CSG) to increase individuals' purchasing power by €800 a year, create 5,000 new posts in hospitals, call a referendum on a new republic, promulgate a law on the separation of banking activities (as Hollande did), impose a European carbon tax, and establish a national anti-terrorism prosecutor.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
The signature proposal of Benoît Hamon was the implementation a universal basic income for all French citizens, rolled out in stages beginning in 2018, partially funded by a tax levied on property combining the existing property tax (taxe foncière) and the solidarity tax on wealth (ISF), in addition to a tax on robots to fund social protections in general.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
Like fellow Socialist dissidents, Hamon criticized the El Khomri labor law and promised to repeal it if elected, and suggested that it be replaced with legislation acknowledging the need for greater social protections, including the right to disconnect and recognizing burnout as an occupational disease. He also proposed to reduce the 35-hour workweek to 32 hours, saying that it was time to put an end to the "myth" of economic growth. Another of his flagship proposals was to legalize cannabis, using funds for "prevention" rather than "repression".


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
In the first round of the primary on 22 January, Hamon and Valls received 36.03% and 31.48%, respectively, and advanced to the runoff on 29 January. Montebourg, who secured only 17.52% of votes, declared that he would cast his second-round vote for Hamon soon after the result became apparent. Among the remaining candidates, Peillon secured 6.81% of the vote, de Rugy 3.83%, Pinel 2.00%, and Bennahmias 1.02%. Overall turnout stood at 1.66 million.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
The legitimacy of the first-round results published by the organizers of the primary was questioned by observers in the French press, who noted that an overnight update added 352,013 votes without significantly changing each candidate's percentage, with vote totals for each candidate increasing by 28%. Christophe Borgel, president of the organizing committee of the primary, claimed that the anomaly was nothing more than a "bug" induced by pressure to update the level of participation in the first round, effectively acknowledging that the results of the primary were manipulated.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
Only on 23 January did the High Authority of the primary publish "validated" results. In the second round of the primary on 29 January, Hamon defeated Valls by a comfortable margin, 58.69% to 41.31%; turnout, at 2.05 million, was considerably higher than in the first round. As the winner of the primary, Hamon became the Socialist nominee for president.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
On 22 February, François de Rugy announced his support for Emmanuel Macron, breaking the commitment requested of former candidates to back the winner of the primary. While acknowledging that Hamon was the legitimate PS nominee, de Rugy said he preferred "coherence to obedience". On 13 March, Le Parisien reported that Valls, rather than backing Hamon, would urge voters to support Macron in the first round of the presidential election; Valls denied the report at the time, but on 29 March declared that he would vote for Macron but would not rally behind his candidacy.


2017 French presidential election, Primaries, Socialist Party (PS)
On 8 April the High Authority of the PS reminded party members to abide by the "principle of loyalty". On 15 March, the PRG announced its support for Hamon, securing concessions on issues pertaining to European governance, and confirmed an agreement with the Socialist Party for the legislative elections; this followed a period of hesitation after the primary in which the party contemplated Macron's candidacy, which secured several of its parliamentarians' support.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 25 January 2017, the satirical weekly Le Canard enchaîné first alleged that François Fillon employed his wife Penelope as his parliamentary assistant from 1998 and 2002 and for six months in 2012, with no evidence that she completed any substantial work. She collected a monthly salary of €3,900 to €4,600.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
After her husband's appointment as Minister of Social Affairs in 2002 and during his later tenure as Minister of National Education, she went on to serve until 2007 as a parliamentary aide to Marc Joulaud, Fillon's substitute, earning an increased salary upwards of €7,900 and with still no evidence of substantial work. The article claimed that she received a total of over €500,000 as a parliamentary aide, as well as €100,000 as a literary adviser to the Revue des deux Mondes. Its owner, billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, is a close friend of François Fillon.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
While deputies in the National Assembly can employ family members, those are still required to complete legitimate work, evidence of which the paper was unable to find. Based on that information and on the same day, the PNF (Parquet national financier, or national financial prosecutor's office) initiated a preliminary investigation into possible embezzlement and misuse of public funds.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 26 January, François Fillon appeared on TF1 to respond to these allegations, stating that his wife had "edited my speeches" and "stood in for me at events when I couldn’t be there", also claiming that the reason that she was never seen working in the Palais Bourbon was because "she was never on the front line". In the interview, he disclosed that he also paid two of his children while a Senator for the Sarthe between 2005 and 2007, claiming that he employed them in their capacity as lawyers.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
He also pledged to resign if he would be personally placed under investigation. However, on 27 January, it was revealed that both Marie and Charles Fillon were only law students when their father employed them during his stint in the Senate, contrary to his statements the previous day. Interrogated by investigators the same day, former editor-in-chief of the Revue des deux Mondes Michel Crépu claimed that only "two or maybe three" bylines in the review were attributed to her, also saying that he had seen "no trace" of any work by her that would "resemble [that of] a literary adviser".


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 1 February, a week after its initial report, Le Canard enchaîné published revelations that the total sum received by Penelope Fillon in fictitious jobs apparently totaled more than €930,000; with the addition of the period from 1988 to 1990, her income as a parliamentary assistant now totaled €831,440. In addition, the satirical weekly also revealed that the payments to two of Fillon's children reached nearly €84,000, with €57,084 net for Marie Fillon and €26,651 for Charles Fillon.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
Video excerpts of a May 2007 Sunday Telegraph interview with Penelope Fillon surfaced on 2 February, in which she claimed that she had "never been his assistant", referring to her husband; The footage aired on Envoyé spécial on France 2 that evening. The PNF expanded investigation into the fictitious employment affair to include Fillon's two eldest children the same day to verify the veracity of their work, after Le Canard enchaîné reported that neither Marie nor Charles Fillon were lawyers at the time their father served in the Senate. In a video on 3 February, François Fillon insisted that he would maintain his candidacy and called on his supporters to "hold the line", seeking to assuage worries from within his own camp about the maintenance of his candidacy.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 6 February, Fillon held a press conference at which he "apologized to the French people" and acknowledged that he had committed an "error" in employing family members as parliamentary assistants, but appended that he "never broke the law". He also argued that his wife's "salary was perfectly justified", adding that everything reported by the press on the issue was "legal and transparent". He said he would not reimburse the payments received by his wife or children, and, saying that he had "nothing to hide", divulged his property holdings.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
In addition to promising that his lawyers would question the competency of the PNF to carry out the investigation, he lambasted a "media lynching" of his campaign. His remarks followed Juppé's declaration that "NO means NO" earlier in the day in response to rumors that he might replace Fillon as the party's candidate should he decide to drop his bid.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
Le Canard enchaîné continued its run of stories on Fillon in its issue of 8 February, revealing that Penelope Fillon collected severance payments totaling €45,000, with €16,000 in August 2002 for the period 1998–2002 and €29,000 in 2013 for seventeen months of employment for which she earned €65,839. The satirical weekly also asserted that she received a double salary during the summer of 2002, as she was hired by Joulaud's office on 13 July, more than a month before her contract as a parliamentary assistant with her husband expired, on 21 August.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
Although aides are eligible to collect severance payments, the law does not permit such a high level for parliamentary assistants. An article in the same issue reported that Marie Fillon was simultaneously employed as a parliamentary assistant while training to become a lawyer, taking the first post in October 2005 and entering the EFB in January 2006. Fillon responded to the claims in a press release by saying that Le Canard enchaîné conflated the amount his wife collected in November 2013 with reported earnings in August 2007 after the conclusion of her work with Joulaud, and denounced the paper's allegations as "lies".


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 16 February, Fillon seemingly withdrew his earlier promise that he would terminate his candidacy if placed under formal investigation, saying "even if I am put under investigation, nothing will stop me" in private. In an interview with Le Figaro published on 17 February, he insisted on continuing his campaign, declaring "I am the candidate and I will continue until victory" and that the closer to the election it was, the "more scandalous it would be to deprive the right and centre of a candidate".


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 24 February the PNF finally opened a judicial investigation into the "embezzlement of public funds, [...] influence-peddling and failure to comply with transparency obligations of the HATVP" against François Fillon, his wife, two of his children, and Marc Joulaud (who were left unnamed, presumably, to allow for expanding the investigation to other suspects, if necessary).


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
The OCLCIFF, which failed to unearth any tangible proof of work by Fillon's wife as a parliamentary assistant to her husband from 1988 to 1990, 1998 to 2000, and 2012 to 2013 or to Marc Joulaud from 2002 to 2007, and was unconvinced by the two reviews in the Revue des deux Mondes attributed to Penelope Fillon, tasked three investigative judges to continue pursuing the affair. These three judges were identified on 27 February as Serge Tournaire, Stéphanie Tacheau, and Aude Buresi.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 1 March, Fillon was informed that he was summoned to appear before the judges and likely to be placed under formal investigation – generally a precursor to an eventual indictment – on 15 March. In the subsequent hours and days, hundreds of campaign members, allies, and supporters rescinded their support for Fillon, including the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), a centre-right party whose president Jean-Christophe Lagarde backed Juppé in the primary, suspended its participation in the campaign.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
fifteen campaign staffers, and hundreds of others; a total of 306 elected officials and members of the Fillon campaign withdrew their support for the candidate by 5 March. Many of those rescinding their support speculated about the potential return of Juppé to replace Fillon as the party's candidate, with Fenech urging elected officials file sponsorships for the ex-primary candidate. Meanwhile, associates of Juppé indicated that he was apparently warming to the idea of stepping in to run if needed, "ready but loyal".


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
Despite this chain of defections, François Fillon remained defiant, holding a rally at the Trocadéro on that afternoon intended as show of force. He then appeared on 20 heures on France 2 that evening, during which he refused to give up his candidacy, saying that "there is no alternative" and adding that "no one today can stop me from being a candidate", insisting that "it is not the party that will decide" the fate of his candidacy.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
He said that the rally at the Trocadéro cemented his legitimacy, and that though he would have stepped down two months ago if indicted then, it was now too close to the presidential election and it would be unfair to voters of the right if he quit now. With a "political committee" planned for the following day, he proposed to assemble a modified campaign team, naming François Baroin, Éric Ciotti, and Luc Chatel, in an attempt to rally support around his candidacy. Immediately after Fillon's appearance, Juppé announced on Twitter that he give a statement to the press in Bordeaux at 10:30 CET the day after.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
Juppé officially announced his abstention from the race on 6 March, saying that "for me, it is too late", and added that Fillon was at a "dead end" with his allegations of political assassination. The same day, the party's "political committee" rallied behind Fillon, unanimously reaffirming its support for his candidacy. The same day, Le Canard enchaîné revealed that Fillon had failed to declare to the HATVP a €50,000 loan from Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, president of the Revue des deux Mondes. The UDI renewed its support for Fillon that evening, albeit only conditionally.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 13 March, Le Parisien revealed that investigators discovered suspicious wire transfers made by Marie and Charles Fillon to their father while employed by him, with Marie returning €33,000 of the €46,000 she was paid. Charles Fillon, in his hearing, referred to similar transfers to his parents' joint account, worth about 30% of his salary.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On the morning of 14 March, Fillon was placed under formal investigation for misuse of public funds, embezzlement, and failure to comply with HATVP disclosure requirements. On 16 March the investigation into Fillon was extended to "aggravated fraud, forgery, and falsification of records". In particular, the probe sought to determine whether documents seized during a search of the National Assembly in March were forged in order to corroborate the veracity of Penelope Fillon's work as a parliamentary assistant.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
The investigation was also expanded into possible influence-peddling related to Fillon's consulting firm 2F Conseil, which was previously hired by billionaire Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, owner of the Revue des deux Mondes, which employed Penelope Fillon. In 2013 de Lacharrière also provided a €50,000 loan to François Fillon, who failed to declare it as legally required. On L'Émission politique on 23 March, Fillon said that Bienvenue Place Beauvau, a book co-authored by Didier Hassoux of Le Canard enchaîné, suggested President Hollande ran a shadow cabinet to spread rumours about his opponents, a claim Hassoux subsequently denied.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 24 March, Marc Joulaud, Fillon's former substitute, was formally placed under investigation for embezzlement of public funds. Penelope Fillon was placed under formal investigation for complicity in and concealment of embezzlement and misuse of public funds, as well as aggravated fraud, on 28 March. In an analysis of online news consumption during the election conducted by AI company, Echobox, stories concerning Fillon and his campaign were found to have garnered more attention than any other candidate nearly 40% of the time, during the four months from January to April 2017.


2017 French presidential election, Fillon affair (Penelopegate)
On 10 April, Mediapart revealed that Penelope Fillon had in fact been paid by the National Assembly starting in 1982, not 1986, as earlier claimed by François Fillon. The edition of Le Canard enchaîné set for publication on 12 April revealed that François Fillon secured his then-fiancée a job three times the minimum wage in a Parisian ministry as early as 1980 while he was serving as deputy chief of staff to Minister of Defence Joël Le Theule; her contract ended in 1981, after 15 months, after the Socialists swept into power.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
After securing his party's nomination in its presidential primary on 29 January 2017, Socialist Party (PS) dissident Benoît Hamon proposed forming a "governmental majority" with Jean-Luc Mélenchon of la France Insoumise (FI) and Yannick Jadot of Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), seeking to "reconcile the left and the environmentalists". Though Mélenchon had earlier demonstrated hostility to the possibility of an alliance, he expressed "satisfaction" with Hamon's sentiments shortly after the primary.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
On 23 February, Jadot cemented an agreement to withdraw his candidacy in favor of Hamon, but on 26 February Hamon acknowledged that talks to secure an alliance with Mélenchon had failed, the pair only agreeing to a code of mutual respect. The talks failed in part because of the candidates' differing positions on matters related to the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB), EU treaties, European defense, and the obligation to maintain a budget deficit below 3% of GDP, among other divergences.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
During a trip to Algeria on 15 February, Emmanuel Macron, candidate of En Marche!, remarked in an interview with local press that the French presence in the country had been a "crime against humanity" and "truly barbaric", drawing the ire of numerous right-wing French politicians. François Fillon of the Republicans denounced Macron's remarks as a "hatred of our history, this constant repentance is unworthy of a candidate for the presidency of the Republic".


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
Seeking to put aside the controversy in a meeting in Toulon on 18 February, he attempted to qualify his remarks, saying that he was "sorry" for having "hurt" and "offended" many as a result, but nevertheless continued to insist on acknowledging that France had a responsibility for its colonial past, not just in Algeria. His remarks were followed by a temporary resurgence for Fillon in polls of voting intentions.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
The various investigations of the fictitious employment of 29 parliamentary assistants to 23 National Front (FN) MEPs, implicating the entourage of Marine Le Pen, continued through 2017. These fictitious jobs would constitute €7.5 million in losses for European taxpayers from the period 2010 to 2016. The European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) pursued the case, establishing that one of Le Pen's parliamentary assistants, Catherine Griset, never secured a lease in Brussels during the five years she was employed and only rarely appeared in the European Parliament, while another, Thierry Légier, worked as a bodyguard at the same time.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
Though the European Parliament demanded that Le Pen return €298,392 by 31 January 2018, representing the salary "unduly paid" to Griset, she refused to do so, and the European Parliament began to reduce her salary to reclaim the money. On 20 February, investigators raided the FN's headquarters in Nanterre for a second time in connection to the case; though Le Pen was summoned to appear before judges on 22 February in the Griset case, she refused to do so until after the June legislative elections, invoking the parliamentary immunity granted to her as an MEP.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
On 3 March, summoned to appear before judges to potentially be charged for breach of confidence, Le Pen was absent, again affirming that she would not respond to the case before the end of the campaign. On 6 March, Charles Hourcade, who served as parliamentary assistant to FN MEP Marie-Christine Boutonnet, faced charges of "concealment of breach of confidence" in a separate case; like Le Pen, who described the investigations into the FN's fictitious employment of parliamentary assistants as a "political operation", Boutonnet declined to appear before judges.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
On 20 April, three days before the first round, three police officers were shot and one killed in an attack on the Champs-Élysées, interrupting the 15 minutes pour convaincre (15 minutes to convince) on France 2, a program featuring successive interviews with the 11 candidates; in the following interviews, the remaining candidates paid tribute to the victims of the attack.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
In the wake of the attack, Le Pen and Fillon, suspended campaign activities the following day – the final day of campaigning – while Macron canceled two trips and Mélenchon insisted on maintaining his schedule to demonstrate that he would not allow violence to interrupt the democratic process; Hamon made similar remarks, proceeding with one campaign event the following day.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
A report published on 25 April by the Japan-based security firm Trend Micro alleged that a group of hackers was targeting the Macron campaign. The group, known as "Pawn Storm" (better known as APT28 or "Fancy Bear"), is believed to be linked to the Russian state, and was responsible for previous attacks, including on TV5Monde in April and the Bundestag in May 2015. In particular, the group attempted a phishing operation, registering four domains strongly resembling those actually used by En Marche!, of which three were domiciled in Ukraine and one in France.


2017 French presidential election, Other incidents
In an interview with Associated Press the head of the French government's cyber security agency, which investigated leaks from President Emmanuel Macron's election campaign, said that they didn't find any trace of a notorious Russian hacking group behind the attack.


2017 French presidential election, First round
The official campaign began on 10 April and ended at midnight on 21 April. During this period, the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel was to ensure equal speaking time for candidates in audiovisual media. On French public broadcasters, ten slots were allotted to the eleven candidates from 10 to 18 and 20 April, with nine slots on 19 April and eleven slots – one for each candidate – on 21 April, the final day of active campaigning.


2017 French presidential election, First round
Voting in the first round took place on Saturday 22 April from 08:00 to 19:00 (local time) in the French overseas departments and territories situated east of the International Date Line and west of metropolitan France (i.e. French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Pierre and Miquelon), as well as at French diplomatic missions in the Americas. As of 17:00 (local time), the official turnout figures announced were lower in the overseas departments and territories (except for Saint Barthélemy) than in the 2012 election.


2017 French presidential election, First round
Although overseas voting took place one day before that in metropolitan France, the election results and final turnout figures were announced at the same time, starting at 20:00 (Paris time) on 23 April, once voting ended in metropolitan France. Voting in metropolitan France (as well as the French overseas departments and territories of Mayotte, New Caledonia, Réunion and Wallis and Futuna, and French diplomatic missions outside the Americas) took place on 23 April from 08:00 to 19:00 or 20:00 (local time).


2017 French presidential election, First round
The official election results were declared by the Constitutional Council on 26 April, with Macron and Le Pen advancing to the second round.


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
A debate between François Fillon, Benoît Hamon, Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon took place on 20 March, hosted by TF1 and moderated by journalists Anne-Claire Coudray and Gilles Bouleau. It is the first time that a debate prior to the first round was held. The choice of date means that TF1 will not be required to provide candidates with equal speaking time, as Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) regulations do not go into force until 9 April, the start of the official campaign.


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who was not invited, denounced the debate as a "rape of democracy", and the CSA urged TF1 to guarantee fair speaking time for other candidates. Dupont-Aignan filed an appeal that was rejected in part because he had already received airtime proportionate to his support. On 18 March, appearing on TF1, he quit mid-interview, furious at his exclusion from the network's debate. The first debate began with an introductory question – "What kind of president do you want to be?"


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
– followed by segments on three themes lasting about 50 minutes each: what type of society France should have, what type of economic model France should adopt, and the place of France in the world. The five candidates were given two minutes to answer each question, but opponents had the opportunity to interject 90 seconds in. The debate was three and a half hours long, and was watched by 9.8 million (47% of the audience share) on TF1, peaking at 11.5 million.


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
BFM TV and CNews hosted the second debate on 4 April at 20:40 CEST, moderated by Ruth Elkrief and Laurence Ferrari, inviting all candidates who qualified to appear on the first-round ballot. The start time, earlier than that of the TF1 debate, was chosen to avoid continuing well past midnight. Three themes were addressed: employment, the French social model, and the protection of the French. The final part of the debate concerned the exercise of power and moralization of public officials.


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
Each of the 11 candidates invited had a minute and a half to answer each question, and other candidates were permitted to challenge their answers. This was the first ever debate including all first-round candidates; A total of 6.3 million people representing an audience share of 32% viewed the debate; BFM TV alone claimed 5.5 million viewers, equivalent to 28% audience share – an all-time record for the channel.


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
France 2 intended to host a debate with all candidates on 20 April, but on 28 March Mélenchon stated he was unhappy with its timing, planning not to attend, and would prefer that it be held before 17 April. Macron also expressed reservations about the proposed third debate, stating that he wanted only one debate with all 11 candidates before the first round, and preferably not just three days before the first round of voting.


2017 French presidential election, First round, Debates
On 29 March, the CSA indicated that it was "concerned" that the date of the debate was too close to the first round, and recommended that candidates and broadcasters work to find an agreement as quickly as possible. France Télévisions decided to maintain the date of 20 April due to the lack of a consensus on an alternative the following day, but abandoned plans for a third debate on 5 April, instead proposing that individual candidates be interviewed by Léa Salamé and David Pujadas during that timeslot. The plan was finally confirmed on 18 April, with France 2 offering successive 15-minute interviews to the 11 candidates with the two hosts.


2017 French presidential election, Second round
After being eliminated in the first round, both François Fillon and Benoît Hamon called to vote for Emmanuel Macron, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon refused to pronounce in favor of either candidate, preferring to first consult activists from his movement. Jean Lassalle and Nathalie Arthaud opted to cast a blank vote, Philippe Poutou and François Asselineau gave no voting instructions, and Jacques Cheminade only stated that he would personally refuse to vote for Le Pen and denounced the forces of "financial occupation".


2017 French presidential election, Second round
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan endorsed Le Pen during the evening of 28 April, and was subsequently revealed as her choice for Prime Minister the following day. On 2 May, the result of Mélenchon's consultation was published, with 36.12% voting for a blank vote, 34.83% supporting a vote for Macron, and 29.05% opting to abstain; Mélenchon, for his part, issued no voting instructions, only urging his supporters not to make the "terrible error" of voting for Le Pen. Jean-Marie Le Pen supported his daughter.


2017 French presidential election, Second round
On the evening of the first round, Macron and members of his entourage celebrated the result at La Rotonde, a brasserie in the 6th arrondissement of Paris; the move was criticized as premature and complacent, viewed as reminiscent of Nicolas Sarkozy's widely criticized post-election celebration at Fouquet's in 2007. On 24 April, Le Pen vacated her position as leader of the National Front on 24 April to focus on her presidential candidacy but remained a member of the party.


2017 French presidential election, Second round
On 26 April, while Macron met with union representatives in his hometown of Amiens employed at the local Whirlpool factory, slated to close in 2018, Le Pen arrived at the site of the factory outdoors around noon in a visit to speak with workers, catching Macron by surprise. When Macron subsequently arrived at the factory site in mid-afternoon, he was whistled and heckled by a hostile crowd, with some shouting "Marine présidente", before he subsequently spoke with the workers for half an hour.


2017 French presidential election, Second round
The official campaign ended at midnight on 5 May. Just minutes before the election silence went into effect, emails and documents from the Macron campaign were leaked on a file-sharing website. The campaign team subsequently issued a statement claiming that they had been compromised, and alleged that the leak contained both real as well and some fabricated documents. Numerama, an online publication focusing on digital life, described the leaked material as "utterly mundane", consisting of "the contents of a hard drive and several emails of co-workers and En Marche political officials."


2017 French presidential election, Second round
Leaked documents included "memos, bills, loans for amounts that are hardly over-the-top, recommendations and other reservations, amidst, of course, exchanges that are strictly personal and private — personal notes on the rain and sunshine, a confirmation email for the publishing of a book, reservation of a table for friends, etc. ", in addition to some documents unrelated to Macron.


2017 French presidential election, Second round
Voting in the second round took place on Saturday 6 May from 08:00 to 19:00 (local time) in the French overseas departments and territories situated east of the International Date Line and west of metropolitan France (i.e. French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Pierre and Miquelon), as well as at French diplomatic missions in the Americas.


2017 French presidential election, Second round
Voting in metropolitan France (as well as the French overseas departments and territories of Mayotte, New Caledonia, Réunion and Wallis and Futuna, and French diplomatic missions outside the Americas) took place on Sunday 7 May from 08:00 to 19:00 or 20:00 (local time). The results of the second round were officially proclaimed on 10 May.


2017 French presidential election, Second round, Debate
Though TF1 initially had plans to hold its own debate between the first and second round, it instead jointly hosted one with France 2. BFM TV also originally intended to host a debate between the two rounds, and it sought to join France 2 and TF1 in co-hosting a single debate but was rebuffed; while all channels were welcome to broadcast the debate, CEO of France Télévisions Delphine Ernotte said, it would not accept such an arrangement with BFM TV, which would mean three journalists moderating the debate.


2017 French presidential election, Second round, Debate
Unlike Jacques Chirac, who refused to debate Jean-Marie Le Pen after the latter's surprise advancement to the second round in the 2002 presidential election, Macron agreed to debate Marine Le Pen on 3 May. The debate, planned to start at 21:00 CEST and last 2 hours and 20 minutes, was originally to be moderated by Gilles Bouleau and David Pujadas; however, after the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) raised concerns that the moderators would both be men for the first time since 1995, the final pair of Christophe Jakubyszyn of TF1 and Nathalie Saint-Cricq of France 2 was chosen. A total of 16.5 million people (60% of the audience share) watched the debate.


2017 French presidential election, Second round, Debate
The debate was considered to have significantly damaged the image of Le Pen and the FN before the second round of the election, with Le Pen criticized for being overly aggressive, arrogant, and amateur in the topics at hand, and was also attributed as a cause of the poor performance of the FN in the subsequent legislative elections.


2017 French presidential election, Aftermath
On 8 May, Macron joined President Hollande on the Champs-Elysées to commemorate the surrender of Germany on the same day in 1945. The official transfer of power took place on 14 May, after which Macron nominated his prime minister and government. The legislative elections to elect the 15th National Assembly were held a month after the presidential election, with two rounds on 11 and 18 June 2017, in which En Marche! presented its candidates under the label of La République En Marche! ; a list of the movement's candidates for the legislative elections was published on 11 May.


2017 French presidential election, Aftermath
Following the second round of the presidential election on 7 May, Macron announced he would be stepping down as president of En Marche!, Le Pen announced that she would undertake a "profound transformation" of the National Front, and Mélenchon urged his supporters to mobilize in the legislative elections.


2017 French presidential election, Campaign accounts
The campaign accounts of the 11 candidates were submitted by 7 July 2017 and published in August 2017, and were validated and reimbursement announced by the National Commission for Campaign Accounts and Political Financing (CNCCFP) on 13 February 2018.


2017 French riots
The 2017 French riots refer to two separate unrelated incidents of unrest in France following claimed abuse of power by police. The first of these riots began on 4 February 2017, in suburbs of Paris, following the alleged rape of a black man named Théo L. by police with a baton. These protests continued until 15 February. The second set of riots began late March when a Chinese man was fatally shot by police officers in Paris. These riots  ended the next day.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
On 2 February 2017, four police officers approached a group of young people at 4:53 PM in the Rose-des-Vents neighborhood of Aulnay-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis), a Paris suburb.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
According to 22-year-old Théodore Luhaka (aka Théo), a local educator, he went with a friend of his sister and had just visited friends in the neighborhood. He said police approached him and ordered him to stand against a wall to be frisked. He said that one of the men the police accosted asked why he was being threatened with a fine of 450 Euros, and one of the policemen responded with a "big slap". Theo L. says he then defended the victim of the slap, and was beaten and insulted as he struggled back.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
The police account of the incident differs. They said the man had intervened violently against an officer arresting a drug dealer, who could, as a result, have run away. According to this account, the young man was restrained after, among other things, punching the policeman in the face.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
The operating account by the IGPN videos are temporally consistent with the officer's testimony, but the IGPN fails to settle the question of who started the altercation.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
Luhaka was restrained by three police officers and a fourth showered the group from a distance with teargas. Following the incident, Luhaka suffered from a longitudinal 10 cm wound to his anal canal and sphincter muscle, probably caused by the insertion of a telescopic stick, which resulted in a  temporary disability (ITT) of sixty days.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
Luhaka said also he was the object of racist insults (including the word "bamboula"), suffered new blows in the police car, and claims to have been photographed in a humiliating position by policemen using Snapchat.


2017 French riots, February riots, Théo affair
At the hearing for the policeman indicted for rape, the police stated that they only hit Théo's legs and they have no idea how Luhaka was injured. The use of tear gas (forbidden in these circumstances, according to Le Dauphiné Libéré) was, according to police, accidental.


2017 French riots, February riots, Investigation
The prosecutor of Bobigny opened a criminal investigation for "violences volontaires en réunion par personnes dépositaires de l'autorité publique"(willful violence in a group by persons vested with public authority).


2017 French riots, February riots, Investigation
The Inspection générale de la Police nationale (IGPN) favored the account that the injury to the anal canal was nonintentional, however, the judge in charge of the case placed under examination the policeman who had used his telescopic baton, and placed the other three under examination for aggravated intentional violence. The four officers were placed under judicial review, and three were banned from official police activity. Minister of the Interior Bruno Le Roux also suspended the four policemen immediately as a precautionary measure. Three of the officers involved in the arrest were charged with aggravated assault and the fourth is being investigated for rape.


2017 French riots, February riots, Investigation
On 14 February 2017, L'Obs published the testimony of Mohamed K. who says he had been a victim of violence of the same officer who is the primary accused in the Théo case, a week earlier — a policeman nicknamed "Red Beard". He said he received numerous blows from this policeman and his colleagues, and had also been the object of racist insults.


2017 French riots, February riots, Investigation
The IGPN was also seized  for this case at the request of the police headquarters and the Interior Minister, Bruno Le Roux. Éric Dupond-Moretti, already a lawyer in the Théo case, was appointed to represent Mohamed K as well.


2017 French riots, February riots, Investigation, Previous offenses
French daily L'Humanité has reported that the Police Commissioner of Aulnay-sous-Bois in 2008 was sentenced to one-year suspended sentence and one year disqualification for not preventing a crime. A police officer had placed a trim between the buttocks of a person who had committed a road offense, who then had accused the police of having "threatened to sodomise." The commissioner, who had arrived at the scene, had remained passive in the face to the actions of his subordinates.


2017 French riots, February riots, Aftermath
Following the initial reports of the assault on Théo, there was unrest for two nights in Aulnay-sous-Bois. Several cars were set on fire, bus shelters had windows smashed and suburb had its street lighting knocked out. Five people were arrested. The unrest later spread to other suburbs of Paris. On Saturday 11 February, a crowd of people gathered to protest police brutality in Bobigny. While the protest was mostly peaceful, a small group of protestors began throwing objects at police and setting cars on fire. Police responded by deploying tear gas and arresting 37 people.


2017 French riots, February riots, Aftermath
The next night, 12 February, around 50 youths gathered in Argenteuil and began throwing objects at police. They also set cars and garbage bins on fire and attacked a public bus. The group assault the bus's driver and also assaulted a journalist. 11 people, eight of them minors, were arrested. A group of South Korean tourists were mugged on a coach bus by rioters in Paris.


2017 French riots, February riots, Aftermath
More clashes occurred in Paris on 15 February, with police deploying tear gas. On the night of the 15th, 49 people were arrested around Paris after engaging in similar behaviors with most of the unrest occurring near the Gare du Nord and Place de la République. 21 people were also arrested in Rouen the same night.


2017 French riots, February riots, Reactions
French president François Hollande visited Théo in the hospital on 7 February. A policeman told Le Parisien that events were similar to the 2005 French riots. Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, called for better law enforcement on 7 February 2017, saying "I know how exposed the police and gendarmes are in the fight against terrorism and violence, but they must be absolutely exemplary at every moment." An SGP Police Unit union official said on C dans l'air, 9 February, that "The insult is more or less appropriate." Minister of the Interior Bruno Le Roux, condemned these comments, as did the group SOS Racisme.


2017 French riots, February riots, Reactions
Théo also received public support of actor and comedian Omar Sy, rapper Youssoupha, from Valérie Damidot, singer Imany, the director and actor Mathieu Kassovitz. On 15 February, dozens of artists published a message of support for Theo L. in Libération, written by a councilor of Brétigny-sur-Orge, Steevy Gustave, a former event manager for SOS Racisme, making some suggestions in order to improve the performance of law enforcement. The supporters included Patrick Bruel,  Hugues Aufray, the comedians Josiane Balasko,  Jean Benguigui and Mathilda May, director Nils Tavernier, the Avignon festival director Olivier Py and comedian Anne Roumanoff. Other media in this case made a more general denunciation of certain police methods.


2017 French riots, February riots, Reactions
In contrast to the many condemnations of police, lawyer Gilles-William Goldnadel viewed the case as "anti-cop hate." He said that the possible misconduct of some police officers "can not put blame upon the entire French police force, who are widely exemplary" and that to "generalize to the entire profession for the possible crime of one or a few is consubstantial racism." Front National presidential candidate Marine Le Pen similarly announced support for police and criticized the French government for not cracking down on rioters harder.


2017 French riots, March riots
More anti-police riots occurred in Paris on 27 March after the fatal shooting of a Chinese man.


2017 French riots, March riots, Shooting
On 26 March, a 56-year-old Chinese man named Liu Shaoyao (simplified Chinese: 刘少尧; traditional Chinese: 刘少堯; pinyin: liú shǎoyáo, often misspelled Shaoyo), was shot to death by police at his home in the 19th arrondissement of Paris after police received a call about a domestic dispute. Police claim Liu immediately charged them with a pair of scissors after they opened the door to his house and shot him dead. Liu's family, who were in the home at the time of the shooting, dispute the story.


2017 French riots, March riots, Aftermath
The day after the shooting, around 150 protesters gathered around the arrondissement police station and threw objects at police and burned a police car. 35 people were arrested and three officers were injured. On 28 March, more protests occurred, but they were not as violent as the previous day's protests.


2017 French riots, March riots, Reactions
Following the shooting of the Liu, the Chinese government called on France to protect Chinese nationals residing in France.


2017 Fresno State Bulldogs football team
The 2017 Fresno State Bulldogs football team represented California State University, Fresno in the 2017 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Bulldogs were led by first-year head coach Jeff Tedford and played their home games at Bulldog Stadium as a member of the Mountain West Conference in the West Division. They finished the season 10–4, 7–1 in Mountain West play to win the West Division. They lost to Mountain Division champion Boise State in the Mountain West Championship Game. They were invited to the Hawaii Bowl where they defeated Houston. They became only the second team in college football history to win ten games the year after they lost ten or more games (1–11 in 2016).


2017 Fresno State Bulldogs football team
In a twist of irony, Tedford, who was the head coach at California from 2002 to 2011, took over for Tim DeRuyter, who was hired to be the defensive coordinator at California for the 2017 season.


2017 Fresno shootings
On April 18, 2017, a racially motivated shooting spree occurred in Fresno, California, leaving three white people dead. The gunman, Kori Ali Muhammad, a black male, black supremacist and black nationalist was convicted of four murders and four attempted murders. Muhammad said he went on his shooting spree because of his hatred for white people and particularly white men. Muhammad fired off 17 shots, shooting and killing three men, shooting and missing at another three men, and shooting at a vehicle with passengers inside. The passengers of the vehicle were unharmed. All of Muhammad's victims were white.


2017 Fresno shootings
Prior to Muhammad engaging in the shooting spree, Muhammad shot a security guard dead at a Motel 6 on April 13. On his social media posts, police stated that Muhammad made posts of him hating white people and expressing anti-government views. Muhammad shouted, "Allahu Akbar" (translated as "God is the greatest" in Arabic) when he was apprehended; however, police determined that the crime was not due to religious extremism and categorized it instead as a hate crime. Muhammad was not affiliated with any terrorist groups. Kori Muhammad was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Motel 6 shooting
At approximately 11:00 p.m. on April 13, an unarmed security guard working at a Motel 6 in central Fresno, California observed a man, Kori Ali Muhammad, visiting a woman who had checked into one of the rooms. Since motel policy mandated all visitors to provide identification at the office, the guard went to the room, with an armed coworker, to inform the pair of this. As the guard was escorting Muhammad and the woman to the motel office, an argument erupted between the guard and the woman.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Motel 6 shooting
As the guard conversed with the woman, Muhammad walked a few steps away from the guard and then turned around and pulled out his handgun. Muhammad fired multiple shots at the unsuspecting guard, killing the security guard at close range. The guard was identified as Carl Williams. Muhammad's shooting of Williams was captured on the motel Wireless security camera. Muhammad also fired several shots toward the motel and at another security guard before fleeing. That guard was uninjured.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Manhunt
The woman, who had fled back to the room, was taken into custody on a felony accessory charge after attempting to take evidence from the crime scene and refusing to identify the gunman to police. According to investigators, the gunman escaped police detection at the motel by fleeing south to a nearby 7-Eleven and hiding out on the store rooftop, where he watched officers interview witnesses and waited for them to leave. Once they left the next morning, he got off of the rooftop, went to a nearby elementary school, and hid by a dumpster. He then traveled around Fresno over the weekend, changing his appearance by cutting his hair.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Manhunt
On April 18, Fresno police identified one suspect in the shooting, 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad (see below). He was a friend of the daughter of the woman at the hotel. On the same morning, while out to purchase items for use in "voodoo rituals," Muhammad went to a Starbucks coffee shop. He used the shop's Wi-Fi to watch a broadcast by Fresno ABC affiliate KFSN-TV that identified him as a suspect in the security guard's murder.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Downtown shootings
After being identified as a suspect in Williams' murder, Muhammad decided that he would not "go down for one murder" and that he "might as well take out as many white men" as he could. Hours after the identification, several shootings were reported in downtown Fresno. Muhammad first approached a Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) utility truck at approximately 10:45 a.m. and fired four shots into it, critically wounding an employee seated in the passenger seat. The passenger of the vehicle was identified to be Zachary Randalls. The driver of that truck was spared from being shot, since Muhammad deemed him Hispanic and thus non-white. The driver managed to drive away unharmed and took Randalls to the Fresno Police Department headquarters, where he alerted officers. Randalls was taken to Community Regional Medical Center, where he later died.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Downtown shootings
In Muhammad's murder trial, the driver of the PG&E utility truck testified that the truck was in park when Muhammad approached them sitting in it. From Muhammad's facial expression, the driver said Muhammad had a "cold, dark look" which the driver found to be unnerving. The driver nodded to Muhammad as a gesture from his window, to which Muhammad was unresponsive. Muhammad walked past the driver's left fender and then stopped,  looking into the truck again. The driver told Randalls that he was suspicious of Muhammad's behavior at this moment.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Downtown shootings
Muhammad then reached into his jacket, prompting the driver to immediately put the truck in reverse. Muhammad fired his gun a few times at the passenger's side, where Randalls was sitting, as the driver was backing up. As the driver backed up a sufficient distance from Muhammad, Muhammad fired off one last shot which hit the headrest of Randall's seat. Randalls told the driver that he was shot. The driver called 9-1-1 emergency and drove to the police station because he did not know where the closest hospital was. The driver stated that Randalls lost consciousness on the way to the police station.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Downtown shootings
Seconds after shooting four rounds into the PG&E truck on N. Van Ness and mortally wounding Randalls, Muhammad proceeded south to Mildreda, turning west. Muhammad fired two more shots at a 59-year-old man coming out of his house, but the shots missed. The second shot hit a residential dwelling on the other side of the street. Muhammad then reloaded his revolver in the alley between Van Ness and Fulton. Muhammad stated that he considered pursuing the 59-year-old man, believing he had gone back inside his house, but changed his mind. Muhammad then turned onto N. Fulton St heading south, where he fired once at a vehicle containing a woman, her adult daughter, and her four-year-old granddaughter, but stopped shooting after realizing they were Latino. No one in the vehicle suffered any gunshot wounds.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Downtown shootings
Muhammad then walked down the opposite direction, where he spotted a man, Mark Gassett, walking out of a Catholic Charities USA building. He shot Gassett once in the chest; he then killed him with two more shots after he had fallen to the ground. Muhammad then reloaded at a bus stop and fired at three white men. Two of them escaped unharmed, but Muhammad chased the third man, David Jackson. Muhammad followed Jackson, who was the heaviest and oldest of the three white men, into the parking lot of a Catholic Charities USA building. There, Muhammad fired six shots: two that killed Jackson, two that struck parked vehicles, one that struck a nearby building, and a sixth that was apparently never recovered. Witnesses said that Muhammad shouted obscenities as he fired.


2017 Fresno shootings, Timeline of events, Downtown shootings
Officers responding to shotspotter reports found Muhammad running down the street and managed to arrest him. During the arrest, Muhammad shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" Several bullets and speedloaders for a .357 Magnum revolver were recovered from his person, but no firearm was found. According to Chief Jerry Dyer, the gun was wrapped in clothing and picked up by a Hispanic male who had met up with Muhammad shortly after the shootings and then fled the scene. Dyer also said a total of seventeen shots were fired in 90 seconds during these shootings. Four minutes had passed between the first shots and Muhammad's arrest. Several streets and county government buildings were put on lockdown during the shootings, with people being ordered to shelter in place.


2017 Fresno shootings, Aftermath
The FBI and ATF were notified of the shootings. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security also responded to the Fresno Police Department headquarters. Chief Dyer said that the incident was "a random act of violence" and that the gunman acted alone, adding that it was "too soon" to determine whether the shootings were acts of terrorism. A federal law enforcement official said the shootings did not bear the hallmarks of a terrorist attack and appeared to be more of a "local, criminal matter".


2017 Fresno shootings, Aftermath
Local authorities said they would investigate the shootings as a hate crime. Chief Dyer said that Kori Muhammad, who is black, told police he decided to become infamous for killing many white people after realizing he was wanted in the Motel 6 shooting. Muhammad led investigators through the murder scenes and described exactly how he committed the shooting rampage, laughing all the while.


2017 Fresno shootings, Aftermath
All of the victims killed in the shootings were white males. The Motel 6 security guard was identified as 25-year-old Carl Williams. The victims of the April 18 shootings were identified the next day as PG&E employee Zackary David Randalls, 34, of Clovis; and Mark James Gassett, 37, and David Martin Jackson, 58, both of Fresno.


2017 Fresno shootings, Aftermath
Mayor Lee Brand offered his condolences to the victims' families and called April 18 "a sad day for us all". PG&E expressed its own condolences to all those involved, including the family of the slain employee.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator
Kori Ali Muhammad (born March 21, 1978) was the gunman in all of the shootings. He was homeless at the time, and had some association with gangs, but was not a member of one himself. He has three children.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Personal background
Born as Cory Allen Taylor, and also previously known as Kori Taylor, Muhammad changed his name to his present one as a teenager. His grandmother said that Muhammad had been drawn to Islam at a young age. Muhammad's aunt said that her nephew also attended a Baptist church when he was younger.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Personal background
Muhammad was a resident of both Fresno and Sacramento, California. According to Muhammad's Facebook page, he studied multimedia at Cosumnes River College in Sacramento. A spokesman for the Los Rios Community College District identified a student named Kori McWallace—with the same date of birth as Muhammad—who attended Cosumnes, American River College, and Sacramento City College at various times from 1996 to 2004. However, no details were immediately offered about his studies or if he graduated. Muhammad also attended classes at Fresno City College, but according to a classmate, he would often not show up for weeks at a time and accuse his instructors of being racist.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Previous criminal history
Muhammad had a criminal history dated from 1997 to 2004, consisting of arrests on weapons, drugs, forgery, and false imprisonment charges, as well as making terrorist threats. Court documents also indicated that he "suffered auditory hallucinations and had at least two prior mental health hospitalizations." Two of his earliest arrests occurred when he was still a teenager; on both occasions, he allegedly brought a gun to school. In 2004, Muhammad was arrested in Washington state for allegedly firing a gun outside his apartment. He left the state and the case was dismissed after prosecutors declined to extradite him to a federal prison.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Previous criminal history
According to court records filed in February 2005, he was arrested and indicted in federal court on charges of "possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm for drug trafficking and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon". In September, Muhammad sought an insanity defense and underwent a psychiatric evaluation after his lawyer claimed his client was "suffering from hallucinations, paranoia and psychosis." A judge ruled that he was incompetent to stand trial and had him committed to a facility for up to four months. He was deemed competent in August 2006, after which he pleaded guilty to two of seven counts in the indictment. Muhammad was sentenced to over nine years in prison, though the sentence was downgraded to over seven years in 2008. He was released from prison early in September 2016.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Previous criminal history
Muhammad claimed to have shot a person at the age of twelve, but the claim was not confirmed by police.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Views and statements
Muhammad maintained two Facebook profiles and a Twitter account, all in which he paid homage to black pride and black nationalism. His profile depicted images of a Black Power salute and a flag associated with the Pan-Africanism movement. According to police, he "expressed hatred of whites" and the government. Muhammad made posts about the murders of five Dallas police officers, in which he praised the shooter Micah Xavier Johnson. He also consistently used the hashtag "#LetBlackPeopleGo" and encouraged "black warriors" to "mount up".


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Views and statements
Muhammad's father described his son's belief that there was an ongoing war between whites and blacks, and that "a battle was about to take place." He later said that he attempted to warn Muhammad's probation officer about his son's hatred of white people and his plans of killing them, but believes no one followed up on his report.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Views and statements
In a phone interview with an ABC News affiliate in downtown Fresno Jail, Kori Ali Muhammad spoke about his motives for the killings. Muhammad spoke about his hatred for white people and especially white men. Muhammad stated that "someone has to fight for them. Someone has to fight for all the people that died at the hands of racist white men." Muhammad was initially wanted by Fresno police for the death of Carl Williams, a security guard he killed a few days before his shooting spree. Muhammad added that "I was actually going to turn myself in.


2017 Fresno shootings, Perpetrator, Views and statements
Then I started thinking about the missing black women and children... started thinking about Flint Michigan...starting thinking about the crack cocaine epidemic...started thinking about all the injustices and atrocities that my people go through. That's why I snapped. I wasn't thinking like I'm going to kill, kill, kill, all I know was that white supremacy has to die and people that benefit most from white supremacy are white men." Muhammad believed himself to be a martyr saying "I gave my life for the freedom of people. The ultimate freedom of my people." Muhammad stated that "Considering the crime I did, I can live with having to be in jail, like I know what I did was wrong." When asked if he regretted killing four people Muhammad stated that he did not.