French update

Since my last post about the French presidential election, to be held on 22 April and 6 May, a few candidates have dropped out, but there has been little overall movement in the polling.

François Hollande (Socialist) continues to lead, with 28-34% in the first round and 56-60% in the second in all polls conducted so far this month. He has made a few waves in the international media by attacking bankers and Greek austerity measures, but is still seen as a lot more moderate and presidential than the incumbent. Nicolas Sarkozy (Union for a Popular Movement) has 24-26% of the first round vote in February’s polls, but still hasn’t beaten Hollande in a head-to-head second round poll since November 2009 (!) He has unveiled his platform, the centrepiece of which is a series of liberal economic reforms to be enacted by referendum – something which only makes him seem more ‘Bonapartist’, and which would be very embarrassing for him if he lost said referenda.

Marine Le Pen (National Front) is still third, but claims to be having difficulty securing the 500 signatures of elected officials needed to get on the ballot. She polls between 15 and 20 percent, but her absence would allow Sarkozy to challenge Hollande for the first-round lead (although not doing anything to his second-round deficit). Behind her are the centrist François Bayrou (Democratic Movement, 12-14%), the left-of-the-Socialist-Party Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Left Front, 7-8%), Eva Joly (The Greens, 2-4%), and our old friend Dominique de Villepin (United Republic, 1-2%). The most exciting news concerning any of these candidates was that de Villepin’s campaign headquarters were burgled, something which is a little suspicious given that we know that Sarkozy’s people may have had some involvement in Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest.

At the bottom of current polls, unable to rise above one percent, are the Trotskyist Nathalie Arthaud (Workers’ Struggle), the altermondialist Philippe Poutou (New Anticapitalist Party), the centrist environmentalist Corinne Lepage (CAP21), the slightly right-of-centre Hervé Morin (New Centre Party, and who may be on the verge of withdrawing), the Bob Katteresque Frédéric Nihous (Hunting, Fishing, Nature, and Traditions; yes, that is the party’s name!), and the eurosceptic Gaullist Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (Arise the Republic). This group of candidates are going nowhere, may not even be on the ballot, and are only good for their amusement value. Morin, who hails from Normandy, provided it recently when he talked about seeing the Allied forces land in 1944, something which would have been rather difficult given that he was born in 1961.

Two other candidates mentioned in my last post have withdrawn: Jean-Pierre Chevènement (Republican and Citizens’ Movement) and Christine Boutin (Christian Democratic Party), both of whom were struggling to even hit one percent. Chevènement is one of the most interesting French politicos in terms of ideology: he is Keynesian, eurosceptic, anti-American, opposed to regional autonomy, and staunchly secular despite establishing the French Council of the Muslim Faith while a minister. His tiny party (he is one of its two MPs) is dependent on the Socialists, so he will almost certainly endorse Hollande. Boutin extracted a price for her endorsement of Sarkozy: a negative comment from him about same-sex marriage (she is its foremost opponent in French politics, and is most remembered for crying in Parliament when civil unions were legalised). Some polls are also testing a candidate named Jacques Cheminade, who ran in 1995 as the candidate of the Solidarity and Progress Party, a LaRouchite outfit, and who assures everyone that he already has the 500 signatures.

If anyone is interested, French Wikipedia has a page dedicated to polling for the election, and new polls are released every few days. The link is here; and note that the pollster CSA has the worst reputation (I’ve seen it referred to as the ‘French Zogby’). Their main page about the election is here, and has pictures of all the candidates (including one of Marine Le Pen playing chess!)