In France, waiting for the two finalists

Vaiju Naravane
The Hindu, 21 April

The outcome of the first round of the presidential election, slated for Sunday, remains highly unpredictable.

THE NEEDLE on the French political compass went haywire this week, careening now to the left, now to the right, occasionally stopping for a second at the centre, creating an atmosphere of disquiet, excitement, and uncertainty on the eve of Sunday's presidential poll. This is, without doubt, the most important election France has seen since 1981 when Socialist Francois Mitterrand unseated Valery Giscard d'Estaing putting an end to 38 years of uninterrupted conservative rule.

As the campaigning, chattering, and heckling quietened on Thursday night — French electoral law stipulates no polls, direct media coverage or campaigning 48 hours before the vote — the country's 44.5 million voters were left to chew things over before Sunday's vote where they will be asked to pull out the top two scorers who will then slug it out for the supreme crown in the May 6 runoff. At least 16 million voters remain undecided, making the outcome of the first round highly unpredictable.

France, which finds itself in an extremely difficult situation, with slow growth, high unemployment, waning international political influence, and an unprecedented social malaise, must decide what it wishes to become in the next five years. The choices are stark.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative frontrunner, would like to open up markets, put the country "back to work" and cut back on state subsidies.

But he would also usher in a period of greater police repression with contempt for society's weaker segments, unbridled authoritarianism, and move France decidedly to the right. Mr. Sarkozy has consistently scored over 25 per cent of the vote in the first round in almost all the polls for the past four months and is near certain as a finalist.

Segolene Royal, the glamorous mother of four who is the candidate of the Socialist Party, stands for a softer, gentler France. But she has tried to please everyone at once and has tended to sound incoherent — neither particularly left wing which leaves die-hard socialists bewildered, nor far enough to the right to credibly nibble at Mr. Sarkozy's electorate. She has harped on the traditional right wing values of flag and country while calling for stronger trade unions and a generalised application of France's highly controversial 35-hour working week. While she is number two according to the polls, her popularity appears to waver giving her anywhere between 23 and 25 per cent. She faces a serious challenge from the centrist Francois Bayrou.

Two elements on the right have further polarised the debate and encouraged Mr. Sarkozy to enter dangerous waters. They are the perennially controversial extreme right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen who has made anti-immigration a major plank of his electoral campaign, and Philippe de Villers, if possible even further to the right than Le Pen, who recently declared that he did not wish France to become "a nation of Islam." Another candidate on the right defending traditional "French" values is Frederic Nihous of the CPNT (hunting, fishing, nature and tradition) party.

In trying to win their votes, Mr. Sarkozy has had to further radicalise the debate, frightening moderate right-wingers who view his forays into extremism with alarm. For instance, Mr. Sarkozy has claimed that paedophilia or delinquency are due to genetic factors and can therefore be detected early and prevented through early detention or medical treatment. This has set off alarm bells amongst doctors and social assistants who claim Mr. Sarkozy's thesis amounts to eugenics, or a pure and simple pre-selection of society.

If Ms. Royal and Mr. Sarkozy make it to the second round their runoff is likely to be a dead heat. But that is indeed a big if.

Voter disenchantment with both Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Royal has opened the way for Mr. Bayrou, a tractor-driving gentleman farmer who has called upon centrists to join a new political formation. Mr. Bayrou, with his gentle smile and earnest spaniel eyes, has been able to hit a centrist patch and recent polls have shown him emerge as the "third man" who could displace one of the two frontrunners.

Ms. Royal has the most to fear from the emergence of Mr. Bayrou. Her own left wing family is hugely divided and their combined first round score could dent her chances of making it past Mr. Bayrou or Mr. Le Pen into the second round.

Left and far left candidates include the fresh-faced Trotskyite postman Olivier Besancenot running for the Communist Revolutionary League (LCR), Marie-Georges Buffet from the traditional Communist Party (PCI), Arlette Laguiller of the Workers Struggle (FO) on her sixth campaign, Gerard Schivardi of the Workers' Party (PT), moustachioed anti-GM farming leader Jose Bove, and Dominique Voynet who represents The Greens. Together they represent an estimated 12 per cent of the vote.

Battle for second place?

With Mr. Sarkozy almost guaranteed a place in the runoff on May 6, according to the polls, the first round has largely come down to a battle for second place between Ms. Royal and Mr. Bayrou.

The four leading candidates were keen to stay away from Paris for their last big rallies and final electoral speeches. Mr. Sarkozy, choose to go to the southern city of Marseille where crime, delinquency, and a large immigrant population have pushed up the number of National Front voters. Making a direct appeal to National Front voters, he echoed the themes of security and traditional values, suggesting he would form a ministry of "integration and national identity." The last suggestion brought forth howls of protest from Jewish and pro-democracy sections on the grounds that it evoked France's collaborationist past when Jews were outlawed as not being part of French national identity. "What is important to me is to talk to the France that no one has spoken to. The France that doesn't burn cars and doesn't block trains, to the France that has no stock options nor golden parachutes and that works hard," Mr. Sarkozy said.

Vincent Jauvert who works for the left wing magazine Le Nouvel Observateur says Mr. Sarkozy has been applying "Bush-like tactics" to push the electorate to take up radical positions. "All his talk about paedophilia or delinquency is not at all germane to the campaign. He wants to push people into camps. He is pitting one France against the other and that will, in the long run be extremely bad for this country." Le Nouvel Observateur has called on voters to forget their personal preferences and vote for Ms. Royal in the first round. The newspaper Le Monde has done likewise provoking a heated reaction from Mr. Bayrou.

At his rally in Pau, southwest France, a combative Mr. Bayrou lashed out at the newspaper for a front-page editorial Thursday calling on voters to opt for Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Royal on Sunday so that there would be a clear left-right choice in the May 6 runoff. "How dare you say we should suppress the first round of the presidential election and go straight to the second round," Mr. Bayrou declared.

There seems little doubt that Mr. Sarkozy will be one of the top scorers in the first round. But the candidate he appears to find most threatening is not Ms. Royal but Mr. Bayrou who could squeak past the socialist into the second round. All polls predict Mr. Bayrou will win hands down if that were to happen. However, Mr. Bayrou too may not be the happiest of choices for the French. He has been attacked from the right for wooing the left and by the left because of his conservative past. "Every single one of his legislators has been elected by the right. He joined Chirac's RPR to form the current UMP party. Until a couple of months ago his supporters were holding ministerial portfolios. He is a true wolf in sheep's clothing," said commentator Luis Lasalles. Political observers have warned that, if elected, Mr. Bayrou may be unable to obtain a majority in parliamentary elections in June and that it would be very difficult for him to create a true centrist party.

Whatever the outcome of the first round, it is clear that France is on the verge of undergoing enormous transformation. Whoever wins the election will have to make some hard choices. The main contenders are all promising to bring change to France but offer radically different solutions to high unemployment, a huge public debt, and simmering tensions in high-immigrant suburbs that exploded into rioting in 2005.

This election will usher in a new and younger generation of leaders. The new President will face the task of reconnecting France to Europe after a majority of voters rejected a new EU constitution in a 2005 referendum. He or she will also have the difficult task of re-legitimising politics in a country disillusioned with politicians and their cupidity.