French Presidential Election

The first round of voting in the 2007 French Presidential election is on Sunday fortnight. There are three main candidates and the two highest polling will go through to a run off a fortnight later. The three main candidates (I am not including Le Pen as he is polling at least 10% behind the two two) are:

Nicolas Sarkozy, Union for a Popular Movement (right)
Ségolène Royal, Socialist Party (left)
François Bayrou, Union for French Democracy (centre)

The UDF normally are supportive of the UMP but have moved away in recent years. They are the most pro EU of the parties, actually advocating the EU become a federal United States of Europe.

Now the polls are quite fascinating. Generally they show Sarkozy ahead of Royal by 5% or so, and Royal ahead of Bayrou also by 5% or so. Their placings of 1, 2 and 3 have occurred in the last 45 or so polls.

And again the last 45 or so polls (there have been a couple of draws) have shown in a run-off Sarkozy would beat Royal.by 4% to 8%.

So if nothing changes will Sarkozy be the 8th President of the Fifth Republic?

Not at all necessarily. It depends on how strategic the left are. They have two options:

1) Hold fast behind Royal and hope that before the final vote in a month, she can beat Sarkozy in a one on one election.

2) Transfer support to the centrist Bayrou, so he makes the run-off election. If Royal drops out, far more of her support would go to Bayrou than Sarkozy. The polls show that Bayrou would beat Sarkozy narrowly.

So what is more appealing to the left? A high probability of stopping Sarkozy or a lower probability of having Royal elected?

Royal has never been the preferred candidate of many of the establishment figures (including her husband) in the Socialist Party. I suspect if she still trails in the polls a week before the first election, her support could well drop away to Bayrou so he faces Sarkozy in the run-off.

Having a President with no parliamentary majority, and in fact with almost no MPs would possibly be a good thing, as they would have to work with all. But it could also make them somewhat of a lame duck. They won only 29 out of 577 seats in 2002. If they win the Presidency, then the June legislative elections would see them improve, but not enough to have a majority.