The weekend round-up
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.