With less than two weeks to go, François Bayrou is rising again, Ségolène Royal falling. Nicolas Sarkozy remains where he has been from the very begining: unshakeably in the lead. Behind them all, Le Pen also rises.

People are starting to wonder whether the surprise of this election, like Le Pen’s appearance in the second round last time, or the No vote to Europe in 2005, will be the absence of a second round at all. That Sarkozy will get a majority in the first round. It is possible: I can imagine many people see his victory as inevitable, so see no point in prolonging the agony. Why submit yourself to a further two weeks of press speculation? For two things seem beyond doubt: one is that Sarkozy will get into the second round, two is that he will win it. As far as I can see, no poll gives Bayrou, Le Pen or even Royal a chance against him in round two. So indeed, why wait?

Many leaders of the Socialist Party are openly planning for 2012 as the candidate they never wanted, Ségolène Royal, seems unable to convince that she really has what it takes to run the country. Enough people on the left are moving elsewhere, mainly to Bayrou. But Bayrou fails to convince that he can make his power-sharing system work. How can Socialists and UMP people work together in a centrist government? France invented the idea of a left and a right in politics and when the chips are down most people fall back on one or other of those positions. Unfortunately clichés always work better than new ideas.

It’s fascinating to see how the press is taking Bayrou’s comeback. Last September he began his rise in public opinion by heavily criticising the press for their blinkered vision, for even back then they had decided there were only two candidates in this election: Sarkozy and Royal. As Bayrou climbed up closer to Royal in the opinion polls, so the press had to swallow the insults and accept him as the third man. Then how they crowed when he started to fall, they loved it! Now he’s clawing his way back up, getting ready, perhaps, to beat Royal into the second round. But then, the French press is used to being proved wrong, predicting a Yes vote to Europe and Jospin’s certain place in the second round in 2002.

On Friday Jean-Marie Le Pen went to the very tower-block estate where, in November 2005, Sarkozy had provoked riots by calling some of the inhabitants “scum”, promising to flush them out with a high-powered German pressure-cleaner, a Kärcher. By going “where our former interior minister dares not set foot”, Le Pen was trying to disprove the theory that his anti-immigrant policy cuts him off from that whole section of French society. The previous day Sarkozy had to cancel a visit to part of Lyon because of a demonstration against him. His people decided that footage of him being heckled and shouted at would be worse for his image than having to admit they were forced to cancel. Image is all. Meanwhile one of Sarkozy’s spokeswomen, Rachida Dati, fell about laughing with a couple of journalists, on film, as she claimed that if Sarko wins she would be made “minister of urban renewal with a Kärcher”. The clip can be seen on the web.

More statistics for those who believe in them: a poll published this morning shows that only 45% of those asked want to work longer to earn more. That flies in the face of Sarkozy’s premise that millions of working people are desperate to increase their income by working a few more hours per week, and so back his plan to loosen up France’s working laws. 53% want to have their current working week sanctified by law.

A development to my blog about the devious practices to which candidates, or their supporters, will resort in order to get the necessary 500 signatures from rural mayors, there’s a story in today’s Le Monde that one rural mayor sent back a cheque for 1,000€ sent to him by the Front National. A spokesman at the Front admitted his party sent cheques to rural mayors, not in return for a signature, no, no, no, but because the Front National understands that rural communes are short of cash for little extras - heating bills for the elderly, for example. A kind thought. Anyway, this particular mayor thought it was a bribe and sent it back. Now added suspicion and calumny will fall on all those mayors (their names will be published on the 20th of this month) who have endorsed the Front. Jean-Marie Le Pen claims to be short of about 100 signatures, with 2 weeks to go.

And another piece of daft polling. Great excitement this morning because a BVA poll showed that if François Bayrou makes it into the second round, he will win the election, whether his rival is Nicolas Sarkozy or Ségolène Royal. The polls say he would beat Sarko by 54% and Royal by 55%. The problem is the same poll says that he won’t make it into the second round - he’ll only get 17% in the first round, well below Royal at 25% and Sarkozy at 31%.

The more I look at the photos of François Bayrou which are flooding the net, the more he looks like what he is - an affable, intelligent farmer. He doesn’t have that crisp slickness of Chirac in the old days or of Sarkozy and Royal today, a quality many find attractive and for some reason equate with efficiency and international know-how. Bayrou’s more the Gordon Brown of the election: it would be interesting to run a proper comparison on the two men. Bayrou is said to be difficult to get on with, certainly several MP’s close to him have left him after stormy disagreements, though he has many firm colleagues, particularly among his advisors like Charles de Courson. Neither man has an immediate telegenic charm, though nowadays that lack may be more appreciated than being at ease with the media. Their policies may be close too, an indefinite mix of vaguely free-market economics and social conscience. Bayrou has bravely overcome a serious stutter, and the effort makes him appear a little slower with words, but that may be seen as greater sincerity? He also fits the tradition that every president of the 5th Republic has had roots in the coutryside. Up until now that has been very important, since many French families only moved out of rural France in the last 40 years and still have close attachments there. Indeed for the parliamentary elections many city-dwellers vote in the country commune of their parents or grandparents because they feel their choice carries greater weight there. Both Royal and Sarkozy have made country folk guffaw by the way they hold a baby pig (important) or pick their way gingerly through cow shit. In many ways the current race is between the French who have moved to the slick city and those who have not: speedy Sarkozy and the slower, thoughtful Bayrou. Tortoise and hare?

This afternoon José Bové’s four-month prison sentence was upheld by the Cour de cassation, France’s main appeal court. How he serves his sentence will be decided soon - since it is recognised that a four month prison sentence could interfere somewhat with his presidential campaign (the first poll is in 10½ weeks), although he will get huge groundswell support. Or the judge could decide to wait till after the elections. If elected president he could of course give himself an amnesty. Instead of going to prison he could be ordered to wear an electronic bracelet. “Pas acceptable!” he cried on TV. “When one is sent to prison for one’s ideas, does one try to negotiate?” One doesn’t know. Clearly the martyr mood is on him again. The original sentence was for destroying a field of GM maize in July 2004.

While Nicolas Sarkozy still dominates the electoral scene,Ségolène Royal is dipping in the polls, François Bayrou rising. The reason Royal is sinking is clear: her recent comments on France’s nuclear submarines and on Quebec which follow hard on an early confusion in her camp as people close to her put out conflicting messages. The internet, having created her image, has now caused some serious dents in it. The candidate who pushed for total transparency has found out the hard way what that means, with videos of policy meetings showing her making statements which she admits she doesn’t want most people to hear, or telephone conversations in which jokey asides become headline news. Although the ethics are debatable, these off the record statements show the gap between what Mme Royal says and what she does, and that disappoints the undecided. On a side issue, the French public who, for years, have pooh-poohed the British gutter press for its intrusion into the private lives of politicians, now find they too love that kind of thing.
The reason Sarkozy remains at around 32% of the polls is perhaps more surprising, since I hear a lot of people saying they don’t trust him, he’s too aggressive or he has no caring side. But this weekend’s poll shows that, regardless of whether or not they will vote for him, 57% think his campaign is more “solid” (against 25% for Royal), 52% say it’s more “precise” and 45% say it is more “credible”. But on issues he doesn’t do as well: 51% of those asked say that Royal inspires more confidence on the environment, against 35% for Sarkozy.

When asked which issues should be made priority during the campaign, the most urgent are felt to be the fight against unemployment (68%), health-care and education. The last two have been almost totally ignored by the candidates. Issues such as immigration and tax, which have been given a lot of coverage, are only rated priority by around 20%, similar to foreign policy and the construction of Europe. But anyway, none of the issues except security are being dealt with satisfactorily. In other words a majority of French people, while perhaps amused by the tittle-tattle, are dissatisfied with the campaigns so far because their preoccupations are not being addressed well. That dissatisfaction with the main candidates pushes more people to agree with the one who has said for years that those in power are a waste of space, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Which beings me back to François Bayrou: he can only make headway in the polls as long as Le Pen is not seen as a threat. If Le Pen starts rising again, Bayrou’s support will fall off, as voters try to prevent the leader of the Front national getting through to the second round. So Bayrou’s apparent popularity has little to do with his policies, but more to do with Royal’s current decline and Le Pen’s perhaps temporary pause.
Or are the dissatisfied voters flirting with the Communist party? That would really be a surprise. As a journalist on Le Monde has noticed, if you go to the Daily Motion site and write presidentielles in the search window, you find that the 8 most popular videos on that subject, some with over half a million viewings, are interviews with the communist candidate, Marie-George Buffet. Worth noting too that the video I mentioned above, showing Royal at a policy meeting, has been screened 647,136 times in 2 months, while one about Sarkozy has been watched 1,418,019 times in seven months, which again shows how active the internet is, and the effectiveness of viral communication (trendy phrase meaning word-of-mouth).

For all her talk of changing France, Ségolène Royal has just showed us that there are some things which do not change: in this case her conviction that French politicians have the right to tell other countries how to behave. East Europeans are still smarting from Chirac’s whiplash in February 2003 about speaking out of turn amongst the Great Powers – indeed the list is long. Following a meeting last night with André Boisclair, the head of the Parti Québecois who is visiting Paris, Royal told reporters that she shared M. Boisclair’s views, principally on “la liberté et souveraineté du Quebec”. That remark, relayed of course by Radio Canada, was jumped on by Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper with a stinging: “Experience shows us that it is totally misplaced for a foreign leader to intervene in the democratic procedures of another country”. Quebec’s premier Jean Charest said that any decision about Quebec’s future would be made in Quebec, while another Canadian politician, Michael Fortier, added that the question of Quebec’s sovereignty would not be decided in the 8^th arrondissement of Paris. Stephen Dion, the head of Canada’s liberal party, visiting Quebec, said that “It destroys her credibility, I don’t think she understands. One does not meddle in the affairs of another country. Canada does not want the break-up of France [presumably a reference to Corsican and other independent movements], I am sure France does not want the break-up of Canada.” But Mme Royal has a gift for not understanding foreign countries. When she visited the Lebanon before Christmas she drew criticism first by meeting a Hezbollah politician, and then by “not hearing” when he compared Israel’s treatment of Palestine with the Nazi occupation of France. On a recent visit to China she praised the Chinese judicial system for its speed (skating over the ten thousand executions each year). Such remarks show deep and damaging inexperience in foreign policy, and earn her nothing but scorn in her own country. Those with longer memories will remember the remarks she made a year ago in praise of Tony Blair – that raised a knee-jerk storm of protest in France.

Clearly Ségolène Royal reads France Profonde! I closed yesterday’s post with the words “until that mythic person in whom the whole of France believes – l’homme providential – appears”. Within hours Royal goes on television specifically to announce “France does not need l’homme providential ” Such was the impact of her statement that those very words then made the headline of today’s Le Monde.

More generally, Mme Royal is gathering a head of steam again, after a bad week. In the north of the country she seems to have converted Martine Aubry (mayor of Lille, former minister, creator of the 35 hour working week, daughter of Jacques Delors) to her side, which presumably means that if elected, the 35-hour week is not going to change.

Despite criticisms from some of her team, she has said she will stick to her original calendar - listening to what her compatriots have to say until February the 11th, and only then will she announce her policies. Still up in the north of France, she promised to make social housing a priority, saying “the law of the market can no longer resolve the housing problem”, thus justifying state intervention. Social housing has become a key issue, which I shall post over the next few days.

Meanwhile in the centre of France, François Bayrou, explained again that, according to him, France is split into two camps: in one, a mere 100,000 people who hold the reins (there’s another candidate who seems to have read yesterday’s France profonde - pace ange scalpel who berates me for claiming power in France is concentrated at the top, M. Bayrou clearly agrees with me) and in the other camp the rest of us - 63.4 million. He also promised not to make too many electoral promises: “I listen to the speeches of my comrades and rivals,” he said, “not a day goes by without them spending hundreds of millions of euro in the electoral promises they make. It’s dangerous and it’s not telling the country the truth.” He wants, quite rightly, to bring France’s huge deficit into the public debate. If you’re having a bad day, take a look at the French public debt counter - every second it adds another 1,896 euro a second.

But does he have a chance? The latest polls put the Ségo/Sarko couple with about 30% of the vote each, Le Pen with 15% and Bayrou with 9% - although a recent IFOP poll did put M. Bayrou overtaking Le Pen by 2 points. Two or three other candidates have 1 or 2% each - the other 36 are nowhere. I caught on the radio last night that someone else has declared themselves a candidate (the 44th?), but I missed his name and can’t find a trace in the press. Poor guy - an inauspicious start.