France's election | The final countdown | Economist.com
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THIS weekend’s presidential election has captured the imagination of the French like nothing else for years. On Wednesday May 2nd, a huge 20m-plus people tuned in to a two-and-a-half-hour television debate between the Socialists’ Ségolène Royal and the Gaullists’ Nicolas Sarkozy—nearly as many as watched the 2006 World Cup final. Campaign rallies have drawn tens of thousands. Turnout in the first round of voting was at its highest since 1974. The burden of expectation about the start of a new era, after 12 stagnant years of Jacques Chirac, is almost worryingly high.
Both contenders have spent decades in politics, but there is a sense of novelty about this election. Neither has stood for the presidency before. Ms Royal is the first woman to reach the second round. Mr Sarkozy is the first candidate to stand whose father was not French (he fled communist Hungary after the war). Both have borrowed policies across the ideological divide. Both promise, in different ways, to make swift reforms to modernise France.
But it is the contest for the centre ground, not policy differences, that has dominated the final two weeks of the campaign. This is particularly necessary for Ms Royal, who trailed Mr Sarkozy in the first round, picking up 26% to his 31%. To secure a second-round majority, she needs a big share of the nearly 7m voters (18.6%) who backed François Bayrou, the centrist candidate. She ruled out any deal with him before the first round. Now she has been courting his voters unapologetically.
Having earlier refused to endorse either candidate, Mr Bayrou said on May 3rd that he would definitely not vote for Mr Sarkozy. He had already implicitly backed Ms Royal, taking part in a television debate with her. They disagreed over her economic policy—too state-centred, he said—but agreed about the need to strengthen democratic accountability. Ms Royal said that she would not rule out naming him her prime minister.
Ms Royal faces tricky manoeuvres. She is courting centrist voters and Socialist moderates, such as Dominique Strauss-Kahn. He could be her prime minister, she said; that may have surprised Mr Bayrou. Yet she also needs to make sure hard-left voters turn out. She even commissioned a report on globalisation and food security from José Bové, an anti-globalisation campaigner once jailed for trashing a McDonald's restaurant.
The one element that unites this improbable collection of bedfellows is hostility to Mr Sarkozy. In a particularly scathing attack, Mr Bayrou denounced his “temperament” and “taste for intimidation and threats”. Ms Royal has called him “dangerous” and contrasts her programme of “reform with calm and serenity” with his “path of brutality”.
Mr Sarkozy probably has the electoral arithmetic on his side, although the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen called on his supporters to abstain, costing him some of the far-right’s 10.4%. He has a reputation for competence that Ms Royal lacks. Early in the campaign, she made a series of foreign-policy gaffes. More recently, she has changed her mind with baffling speed about an amnesty for illegal immigrants and a proposed new work contract for the young. Mr Sarkozy, by contrast, has kept a remarkably steady line, repeating his relentless call for more work, less tax, and respect for the law. If anything he has stepped up his right-wing message, attacking the “laxist” heritage of the student revolt of May 1968.
The debate largely confirmed those differences. Ms Royal dealt in generalities: “My tax will be at the level necessary for social justice,” she declared when challenged on pension reform. Mr Sarkozy sounded more the technocrat, sticking to his policy briefs. The evening’s big surprise was that Mr Sarkozy managed to keep his cool. Ms Royal, on the other hand, put in a feisty performance that erupted into downright testiness. On the subject of school places for disabled children, she accused Mr Sarkozy of “lying” and of “political immorality”. Mustering all his gravitas, and with a hint of irony, Mr Sarkozy replied: “To be president of the republic, you have to be calm.”
It is unclear whether the debate will help Ms Royal win over waverers. Having gained between 51% and 54% in every poll since the first round, Mr Sarkozy remains the favourite.
France's election | The final countdown | Economist.com
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