Comments on: Bayrou bites back

by: Tim

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:27:20 +0000

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.

by: Danny

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:25:16 +0000

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.

by: Tim

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 11:04:10 +0000

So in other words we are doomed to the Ségo/Sarko final?

by: ange scalpel

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:13:50 +0000

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.