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 22^nd. 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.