The pendulum’s got stuck
A week is a long time in politics and I have been away from my blog for a week – researching a documentary film about power in France. During that week, Ségolène Royal collapsed a bit further in the opinion polls, was given up for lost by many commentators but, since her television debate on Monday, has started to climb again. François Bayrou has continued his steady crawl upwards, but is still way behind the main two and for Sarkozy it has been yet another week at No.1.
80% of the electorate say they are still undecided, nevertheless there is something very odd about Ségolène Royal’s campaign. A year ago she was very much an outsider. Then, thanks largely to her use of the internet and participative debates, she rose spectacularly to be elected Socialist candidate last November, convincingly beating the old guard. Since then, as we all know, she has disappointed. But, given the way our democracy works, by definition a swinging pendulum, she should have been the front-runner from the outset. For although Sarkozy has distanced himself from Chirac, he is nevertheless identified as Chirac’s successor: he is president of the party Chirac created, he has been a minister in Chirac’s government for 5 years: despite himself he carries the can for the terrible five years at least of Chirac-inspired failings. Even though he wants a change, with his control of the media and so much else in France, Sarkozy represents the current rulers, so in our democracy it would be natural for him to go, as the pendulum swings left. But no. With the campaign now well established, he is ten points ahead of Royal.
Why is the electorate showing so little enthusiasm for the Socialist candidate, particularly one who is not associated with the policy failures of Lionel Jospin? As Françoise Fressoz says in Les Echos, Royal has learnt from Jospin’s mistakes in the 2002 elections, unlike him she spends enormous energy listening to people and then creating policies from a synthesis of what they say. Her problem is that as yet she has not managed to imprint these on the collective consciousness. She has also failed to decide on the Socialist Party’s identity. So she falls back on tired socialist mantras, but even so, tired mantra-repeating socialists like Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Laurent Fabius refuse to show the slightest flicker of enthusiasm for her. Nor do any of the newer, social-democratic European socialist parties. Last week her economic advisor walked out. It is no secret that Royal’s team do not get on at all with the official Socialist Party – whose president is Royal’s partner. But Royal needs them, not for their ideas but for their weight and logistics – she is not going to win this election without them. But they are not coming towards her, rather they seem to be leaning towards François Bayrou.
Meanwhile, as the possibility of Bayrou’s becoming president gains ground (the latest IFOP poll says that if he makes it into the second round, he will win it) so the glaring weakness of his position is becoming apparent. Who is he going to ask to form a government? He has let it be known he might ask a Strauss-Kahn-like figure to be prime minister. But within weeks of his election there will be the parliamentary elections: while the presidentials are about individuals, parliamentary elections are about parties. Can Bayrou’s UDF party field enough candidates to constitute a majority? No. So if the Socialist party does well, what kind of mess will that make? The Socialist president, François Hollande (Royal’s partner), would become prime minister, elbowing out Bayrou’s choice, and he will appoint his team of ministers, with whom Bayrou will have to work. If the right-wing UMP do well, Bayrou will have to work with Sarkozy as prime minister. By voting Bayrou you are inevitably voting cohabitation. Bayrou himself has said that he wants to rule with a national union, but to be credible he would have to have enough senior politicians from the left and the right commit to him (by leaving their own party) before the election, so his voters know who they are voting for. Yet if he does that, he will also alienate some – who like him but don’t want to be governed by a Strauss-Kahn or a Jean-Louis Borloo (currently with Sarkozy).