Back to basics
English friends, bemused that I say there are 38 candidates for the presidential election, have been asking me who they are and wondering why nobody talks about them. The answer to the first question is relatively simple: I give the list below. As for the second, well until they get signatures from 500 elected representatives (mayors, regional councillors, members of the Assemblée Nationale or the Senate) they are not officially candidates. The closing date for the signatures is the 16th March.
My thanks for this list to Nicolas Voisin, creator of the excellent Nues newsblog
Those who could get through to the 2nd Round:
- Nicolas Sarkozy (51) Union pour un Mouvement Populaire
- Ségolène Royal (53) Partie Socialiste
- Jean-Marie Le Pen (78) Front National
- François Bayrou (55) Union pour la Démocratie Française
Those who are highly unlikely to get through to the 2nd Round
- Philippe de Villiers (57) Mouvement pour la France
- Marie-George Buffet (56) Parti Communist
- Arlette Laguiller (65) Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ struggle)
- Olivier Besancenot (32) Ligue communiste révolutionnaire
- Dominique Voynet (47) Verts
- Corinne Lepage (55) Cap 21
- Antoine Waechter (57) Mouvement écologique indépendant
- Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (44) UMP souverainiste
Those whose names are not listed in opinion polls, thus we must assume they will sink without trace
- Jacques Cheminade (64) Solidarité et progrès
- Stéphane Pocrain (33) Green ?
- France Garnerre (64) Génération écologique
- Nicolas Miguet (45) Rassemblement des contribuables (those who pay taxes)
- Rachid Nekkaz (34) Club des élus Allez France
- Roland Castro (64) Mouvement de l’utopie concrète (an architect)
- Christian Chavrier (40) president of Parti fédéraliste
- Jean-Philippe Allenbach (58) former president of Parti fédéraliste
- Jean-Marc Governatori (47) France en action
- Gérard Schivardi (56) Parti des travailleurs
- Yves-Marie Adeline (46) Alliance royale (not the Ségolène sort)
- Alain Mourguy (58) Union droite-gauche
- Edouard Filias (27) Alternative libérale
- Frédéric Nihous (39) Chasse Peche Nature et Traditions
- Eric Taffoureau-Millet (43) Attention ! Handicap.
- Jean-Christophe Parisot (39) Collectif des démocrates handicapés
- Michel Baillif (62) Fédération nationale de l’invalidité
- Leila Bouachera (45)
- Soheib Bencheikh (45) former grand mufti of Marseille
- Yvan Bachaud (67)
- Michel Martucci (75) Conféderation nationale des syndicats CID (short contracts) artisans commercants
- Jean-Michel Jardry (56) Centre national des indépendants et paysans
- Robert Baud (57) Majorités des minorités en souffrance morale et sociale
- Romdane Ferdjani (59)
- Lucien Sorreda (64) les revenus bas tirés vers le haut
- Yves Aubry (38) permettre aux Rmistes (those dependent on social security), aux pauvres de vivre décemment
- Jean-Paul Le Guen (63) apolitique
- Armand Galea : Pour l’honneur de France
- Jean-Philippe Allenbach : fédéraliste candidat de la province
- Christian Garino : Esperanto liberté
- Daniel Lacroze-Marty: Cesprimer
The undecided:
- Nicolas Hulot (51) very popular TV presenter of ecological issues.
- José Bové (54) firmly against globalization.
- Dominique de Villepin (53) UMP, but if he stands presumably independent right.
The figures in brackets refer to the candidate’s age, not, as it would in France, the département where he/she lives.
I leave you to calculate the average age, sex and skin-colour.
As you see, there are 43, with another few perhaps to come. Given high days and holidays that is enough to have a fresh president every Monday morning of the year, an entirely equitable system and since we won’t remember any of their names, they would slip quietly into the sort of quasi-anonymity of the Irish, German and Italian presidents.