Weekly round-up
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.
April 9th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I agree that Sarkozy looks unbeatable, although you say that no poll gives Bayrou a chance against him in the second round. In fact, nearly every poll says Bayrou would beat him in the second round (see http://www.lemonde.fr/web/vi/0,47-0@2-823448,54-848463,0.html for Le Monde’s handy summary page). In reality, I doubt Bayrou would manage it but the polls suggest otherwise, at least for now. Thanks for the useful precis of Charles de Courson’s article in Philosophie the other day by the way. Saved me having to wade through it myself!