The French press this morning is galloping away in pursuit of the second round campaign, Sunday’s vote fast fading into the dust. Before it disappears altogether, however, the analysis of that vote is worth looking at, and I give a brief summing up on the Prospect website which should be posted on Wednesday morning – including the surprising news that more women voted Sarkozy than Ségolène Royal. Why? Readers’ comments are welcome.

Another surprise was that the abstention rate of French people living abroad was 60%, against a national average of 15.4%. Of the 1.37 million French people living outside the country, 941,364 put themselves on the electoral list, but the majority did not vote. As far as I know, no one has offered an explanation. I wonder whether it means most feel they are not going back to France. Any ex-pat French readers’ views more than welcome.

It’s also fascinating to see how France is divided by geography: the north, east, south and centre are mainly pro-Sarkozy, while Royal’s support comes mainly from the west and south-west – in fact an area suspiciously like the enlarged Aquitaine ruled by the English from 1369 to about 1415. Totally irrelevant, of course. Nobody would suggest the Black Prince and his cursèd cohorts of routiers introduced socialism to France! But more seriously it is intriguing that the ex-industrial north is no longer a socialist heartland, as I mentioned in the article on Le Pen in the April issue of Prospect.

Looking forward, much of the focus of the next 12 days will be on François Bayrou, or rather his voters. Both candidates, but particularly Royal, need him and/or them. He polled nearly 7 million, an impressive increase of 5 million since 2002. He scored above average with the young, particularly the 24-35 age group: less well with the over-60s where Sarkozy did well. Most of Bayrou’s supporters are from the middle-class professions – doctors and lawyers – and higher management, with a good number of self-employed artisans and shop-keepers. He also scores well in traditionally Catholic areas. The reason he failed to get second place, according to Pascal Perrineau, director of the Sciences Po’s research centre, Cevipof, is that he did not convince the couches populaires.

Roughly half Bayrou’s supporters are true centrists, which in France means they are basically leaning right. His party, the UDF, is associated with the right. But many of his new supporters come from the left. They are either Bo-bo socialists (bourgeois-bohemian), meaning the more reform-minded (Blairist) left or Trotskyists, according to André Santini, a UDF mayor who flipped over to Sarkozy a few weeks ago. They will almost certainly vote Royal on the 6th May. Bayrou himself will tell us tomorrow what he recommends, but he will probably leave it up to the individual conscience. He has come an enormous distance selling the line that France needs neither right nor left but centre – and any change of tune now will destroy his credibility for good. Some of his followers will probably abstain in the second round, but I guess roughly half will go for Sarkozy because he is more likely to help small enterprises, half will go for Royal because she represents the caring face of France.

But to win, Royal needs more than half, and already she has said “we need to invite another dimension to our gathering,” meaning Bayrou, But what can she offer that means anything to him? Prime minister? She wouldn’t dare – even if he agreed to take it, which would blow his independence. But she can afford to lean further to the centre than Sarkozy: he is afraid of losing Le Pen’s voters, won with such effort in the first round, but she knows the far left will be more forgiving because they will do anything to prevent Sarkozy. So she could ease her policies on employment, perhaps, offering a platform closer to Tony Blair’s. It will be fascinating to see how far she dares go.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 4:25 pm and is filed under Political, François Bayrou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.