Bayrou bites back
What’s the point of having 43 candidates if two have already sewn-up everything between them? Why don’t three or four of the middle bunch get together to break the Ségo/Sarko stranglehold? Well, I think that will happen, and when it does, remember: you read it first in the Prospect blog – although I take no credit for it, it’s simple common sense. An alliance of the green-centre-right-leaning-left-but-whoops-not-too-far. The big surprise, a media event selling more tickets even last Sunday’s Sarko-circus, and it could happen on Monday.
François Bayrou, Nicolas Hulot, Corinne Lepage, Dominique Voynet and perhaps Nicolas Dupont-Aignan. Names unknown outside France, and within France some don’t raise much enthusiasm – as individuals, but perhaps as a team? Not very sexy, voting for a coalition of four or five people, but yesterday’s BVA poll shows that as individuals they would take around 20% of the total vote (as against Royal with 15%, Sarkozy with 16%). Perhaps collectively they would take slightly more, if people believed in them. And their presence would unsettle if not unseat Le Pen.
So who are they? François Bayrou (6%) is the best-known politician, I wrote about him on the 13th. Ahead of him in the BVA poll is Nicolas Hulot (9%), who is not a politician at all, but a TV presenter (someone said recently that if Miss France was a candidate she’d do better than most of the “small” candidates). For the last 9 years he has fronted an extremely popular environmental show called Ushuaïa (proof that the title is irrelevant if the content is good). The French have not had the benefit of David Attenborough, David Bellamy, Gerald Durrell or even Armand and Michaela Denis, so falling in love with a man in an anorak talking earnestly about nature while hugging gorillas is a new experience. M. Hulot has his own foundation, and has drawn up an environmental charter which (thanks to recent international developments, particularly the Stern Report in October) he has arm-twisted all the candidates to sign, thus committing them in public to push ecological issues if they are elected. So far, despite their seductive advances, he has refused to ally himself with either Sarko or Ségo: he has said he will announce his decision on whether to run (and if so, in which direction) on Monday. This Monday, the 22nd. My guess is that instead of making it 42 also-rans, he will announce a coalition with Bayrou, Lepage, Voynet and perhaps Dupont-Aignan.
Corinne Lepage and Dominique Voynet are well-known Green politicians. In 1995 Lepage (1%) became the environment minister in Alain Juppé’s ill-fated government. She lasted two years and has never recovered from the uncomplimentary epithet “a right-wing green”. She stood for president in 2002 (the mayor of a neighbouring village endorsed her – and did again this year) and she’s written a sensible, downloadable book.
Dominique Voynet (2%) took over from Lepage as minister of the environment in 1997, under the Jospin government. She is on the left, the official candidate this year for the Verts and a senator.
An optional extra could be Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (not quoted in the BVA poll): he is unique in that he stands on the moderate right as an alternative to Sarkozy. He resigned from the UMP last Saturday. Listening to an interview with him, what jumped out was his saying the last thing we want is France to be like London, where it’s the law of the jungle. It always amuses me that the country which invented (and uniquely maintains) civilised queuing is said, outre-manche, to be roaming with untamed beasts, red in tooth and claw (but not in politics). I shall return to the theme of the misuse of national stereo-types in the French election on another day.
Can these four or five individualists form a credible coalition? Can they sell that as an idea? Given the creakiness at the top of the bill, given the current importance of ecology and the growing idea of participative democracy, which might be better represented by a coalition than by a single top-down controller, it is entirely possible: Hulot as planetarily-committed president (perhaps charmingly behaving like his grandfather who, as Jacques Tati’s neighbour, inspired the character of that name), Bayrou as PM, the women making France a green, hunter-free haven, and Dupont-Aignan in solar topee, liberally daubed in jungle-juice, warily stalking the corridors of the ministry of economics. It’s intriguing, I think they should give it a try – frankly, apart from possibly Bayrou, they’ve got nothing to lose.
January 20th, 2007 at 10:13 am
The suggestion that people as diverse in political origins as these could make a coalition is preposterous, and has no sense except under some sort of logic of media popularity or unpopularity which I hope you do not take seriouly. They have nothing in common politically - even Hulot and Voynet and Lepage have nothing in common in spite of the ecological manifestos - and they are united simply by their being outsiders. Hulot is just a creation of the media - why not Miss France as you suggest? Bayrou is different. He is a traditional politician, located on the center right of the scene, representing a tradition of moderate liberalism. His main commitment, as Romano Prodi said recently, is European. He is the only true European among all the French candidats. Given that the French have massively rejected the European Constitution, that the European issue is almost absent of the campaign , Bayrou’s relative absence from the polls is very likely here to stay. His only chance to come back is that the eyes of people open when they realise the utter emptiness of the other candidates and the underdog effect creates some elbow room for him. But their eyes are shut, and the French sleeping beauty is very unlikely to wake up. But the British should not care: whether it’s Lepen, Royal or Sarkozy, France will be for long a place of tourism. After all did we care when the colonels where on power in Greece in the 1970s ? No, it was enough for us that the beaches were clean.
January 20th, 2007 at 11:04 am
So in other words we are doomed to the Ségo/Sarko final?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:25 pm
How do you rank the chances of the extreme right or the extreme left (if the can unite) edging one or both main candidates? (As happened in 2002) That seems to me far more likely than a successful run from the center.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Logically you are absolutely right. The third runner at the moment is Jean-Marie Le Pen - although some polls have him dipping below Bayrou. There are several things to say about that. Le Pen making it into the 2nd round is the eventuality which frightens (I don’t think that’s too strong a word) many French people, consequently I believe they will do or accept almost anything to avoid it. That “almost anything” could well include an unlikely coalition between candidates in the centre. Another thing to say is strategy: Sarkozy has to veer heavily to the right for the first round in order to take Le Pen’s votes (he will then have a fortnight in which to veer heavily to the left to convince the centre and left-waverers that he would make a caring, socially-minded president). Because at the moment he has to go right, he is leaving a gap for Bayrou to edge in. The further out Bayrou can push Sarkozy, the more centrist votes Bayrou can pick up. This morning there’s a rumour Bayrou’s going to ally himself with……….Jacques Chirac!! They hate each other, but any port in a storm… I don’t believe Bayrou’s chances are too bad.
The extreme left is certainly a possibility, but they have not yet settled down (indeed nor has the Socialist Party), and until they get their act together it’s useless to guess. As you know, this election is about a person, not a party. Sarkozy has realised that, Royal has not.