What with all the excitement over the U.S. presidential elections on this blog and many others - including from me - it might be easy to forget that the presidential election itself is more than twenty months away. The next election that will register much in British politics is the race to be the next president of France: the first round is in April, the second round in early May.

Many are probably familiar with the story so far: photogenic and optimistic Ségolène Royal had a great start, and won the Parti Socialiste’s nomination, beating the fusty old men who have led the French left for decades. Since then, a perceived lack of experience and a series of gaffes, such as suggesting the French judicial system could learn from the Chinese one, have left her trailing in the polls. A warning for ‘optimistic’ and unconventional American candididates?

Nicolas Sarkozy, on the other hand, has been seen as the rising star in the French political firmament for some years now. The candidate of the centre-right UMP, he sees himself as a moderniser, but strikes me above all as a populist. He caused controversy by describing the young trouble-makers of the Parisian banlieues as racaille (scum) and promised to clean them out au Kärcher (with a high-pressure hose). Sarkozy knows his appeal is to the right, and has publicly expressed his desire to win over those who “lost their way” in voting for the anti-immigration Front National candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002; as many thought his line was tough and uncompromising as considered him dangerously provocative.

To a British observer, it can seem strange that both candidates are modelling themselves to a certain degree on Tony Blair, Sarkozy much more explicitly than Royal. Blair may be written off as a sitting duck and a liability by much of the press now in Britain, but to French candidates faced with 10% unemployment and huge social dislocation expressed in the 2005 fortnight of rioting, Blair’s Britain is working and he has been an undoubted electoral success. Neither of the two is likely to fundamentally challenge the French ’social model’, though Sarkozy does want to encourage optional overtime on their 35-hour week (scorned by all Brits but arts students like me, who think that’s a punishing schedule). Both, however, look at the growth and employment figures and flexibility of the labour market across the Channel with envy.

It’s not simply a two-horse race, though; the Parti Socialiste was shocked in 2002 when its candidate Lionel Jospin didn’t even make the second round, being edged out by Le Pen. If the May face-off won’t be between Sarko and Ségo, the most likely alternative will be François Bayrou. He has appeared reliable while Royal has appeared increasingly out of her depth; his attacks on money’s influence in politics and desire to remould the constitution into a Sixth Republic may make him the candidate for the disaffected. The UMP and the PS must be hoping that people aren’t simply sick of them.

Filed under: europe on February 21st, 2007