Guest Slot: Mr.Chip’s guide to the 2007 French Election
June 2nd, 2006
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Can Ségo stay silent to beat Sarkozy
Just six months back, you could scoop up Ségolène Royal, the dark horse of the French left, at 12/1 when the May 2007 presidential election was sure to be a slugfest between two conservatives, Dominique de Villepin and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Now, after Villepin’s spectacular implosion over a trivial change to labour law and now a Watergate-like spying scandal, Royal (at 11/4) looks like the only thing standing in the way of Sarkozy as he bids to replace lameduck president Jacques Chirac next year.
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Royal’s feat is all the more impressive since, apart from the fact that she is a former Socialist minister and current governor of the Poitou-Charentes region (thereby ruler of many a Brit), nobody knows where she stands politically.
By saying she “admires” some of Blair’s policies, she stole the mantle of left-reformer till then owned by former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Then, to shake off the hated “blairiste” tag, she criticised him for failing to speak up when Peugeot shut its Ryton plant. By keeping mum yet dominating magazine covers, she has convinced 59% of French voters in a May 19-20 BVA poll to vote for her.
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So why is she leading Sarkozy in the polls but rightly trailing him in the betting markets?
Because she has to continue alienating nobody for 11 long, long months. And that’s even assuming she manages to convince the Socialist Party’s unreconstructed leftist base to pick her as candidate. In a clever move, Strauss-Kahn this week started smoking her out by warning she was probably “more conservative” than Sarkozy.
This may surprise those whose knowledge of “Sarko” comes from the English-language press but Strauss-Kahn is actually right.
Sarkozy’s tough approach to street crime, which is motivated both by an attempt to eat into Jean-Marie Le Pen’s support and a Blunkettish view that working-class people are its victims more than its perpetrators, is compensated by a “left-wing” approach to social policy. For example, he champions positive discrimination for minorities in the jobs markets and state funding for mosque-building.
A frenetic campaigner and the embodiment of change, Sarkozy will crush any Socialist candidate other than Royal. She is the only one he fears since he believes she could run an entire campaign based on opposing him rather than setting out any policies of her own.
This is doubtful. A real political pro she may be but it’s hard to avoid comparisons with Wesley Clark in 2003; a superstar till he opened his mouth. The smart money has to stay with Sarkozy with Lionel Jospin generous at 25/1 and Strauss-Kahn a good bet if you can get someone to open a book.
Mister Chip is a European policy analyst and regular on the site and is writing under an assumed name so “he doesn’t upset his clients”
Note from Mike Smithson: CymruMark will be writing a guide to next year’s Welsh Assembly Elections which I will publish over the weekend.
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Is French Parliament up for re-election next year too?
Andrea, Yes, I believe so…since both President and National Assembly have 5 year terms.
I doubt if Sarkozy can be beaten, unless some truly awful scandal were to emerge.
Sean Fear, Sarkozy thinks he can be beaten but only by her. Her star first rose when she led the Socialists to victory in the Poitou-Charentes, which had been the fiefdom of then PM Raffarin. Unlike the men who were seen as the only possible candidates of the left, she was able to appeal to centre-right voters.
Sarkozy has also relied for years on being the only candidate for the presidency who incarnates “change” and “rupture”. She now rivals him in this field, and her statement yesterday that young delinquents should do military service was pure ‘Sarko’. Although her rivals Strauss-Kahn and Laurent Fabius were quick to condemn her as Sarkozy-lite, interestingly it was a lieutenant of Lionel Jospin who said she was right not to abandon law and order to the Right. This was a key reason for Jospin’s elimination in the first round of the 2002 election at the hands of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
I think your broad view is right though. Royal will have to campaign against her party to have a shot at the presidency but Sarkozy is unchallenged party leader and has been driving its (not the government’s, mind you) policy development for more than 18 months. He has the advantage also that he can campaign against the failures of the incumbent even though he is inside the government, since everyone knows he wants to take reform much further. In the end, the French will take the risk.
Thanks, Mr. Chip. What do you think Le Pen’s impact will be on the Presidential election?
That is the one big plus of a Sarkozy-Royal dual. I’m convinced Le Pen will be properly squeezed for the first time since his rise began in the 1983 municipal elections. The 17% he won in 2002 - a cynical election in which more than 30% of the electorate voted for non-democratic parties in the first round - will be his high watermark. Sarkozy’s tough message on crime, on an end to unskilled immigration and the perception that he intends to carry out his policies (unlike Chirac’s ludicrous electoral posturing in 1995) should peel away angry but uncommitted FN voters. My guess: 10% in the first round.
6.” a cynical election in which more than 30% of the electorate voted for non-democratic parties in the first round”
which are the “non-democratic” parties?
Very interesting article, I hope we can look forward to many more updates before the French Election begins.
…. why don’t they make politicians like that over here?
Quite right Andrea, I was a little loose with my adjectives there.
It’s more accurate to say 30% voted for authoritarian parties that treat democratic elections as tactical propaganda tools. First among equals was Le Pen’s Front National with 16.86% and the breakway neofascist Mouvement National Républicain with 2.34%, and then three Trotskyist groups - the Parti des Travailleurs, Lutte Ouvrière and the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire - which together reaped 10.44%.
Can you imagine such a result in any other western European country? It is a sign of deep malaise and consequently a trivial approach to political choice. I left off the 4.23% of the national vote won by the French equivalent of the Countryside Alliance and the 3.37% for the communists.
I see parallels to both, tabman, but discretion prevents me from suggesting them…
The only senior French politician I’ve met is de Villepin, whom I met with a few coleagues shortly before the Iraq war. He had obvious flair edging on brilliance - he mightn’t appreciate the comparison but he reminded me at a personal level of Tony Blair: the same mixture of swift mind and attentive personal response (as opposed to “why doesn’t this fellow shut up so I can say my usual piece?”, a common habit among senior politicians). It’s a pity that de V’s political instincts seem to be so hopeless.
10. Mister Chip, thanks.
How much more authoritarian and “loony” are the Trotskyist groups compared to the “mainstream” communists?
Separated at birth:
Wark
Royal
The old Communist Party is a shadow of its former self (its presidential candidate as recently as 1981 won 15% of the vote) but still has a large membership and organisational base. Its national support was crushed by the usual stuff - the demise of the Soviet Union and the shrinking of the industrial working class - but also, in the specific French case, by the party’s collaboration with failed socialist governments.
Now, its positions are indistinguishable from the left of the PS: it’s all about freezing existing labour law and defending the acquired perks of public-sector workers. The Trotskyist parties are more pro-active; they want revolution and (like the SWP here via its Respect vehicle) they use bourgeois elections as tools to raise the profile of their ideas with the working class. A poll conducted not so long ago showed that 13% of the French population supported socialist revolution. No, don’t laugh.
With Arnie bidding to become one day President of the USA (pending law changes), I should not be at all surprised if a short version of Sly became French President.
14.”A poll conducted not so long ago showed that 13% of the French population supported socialist revolution. No, don’t laugh.”
In Italy at the question “is communism a risk for democracy?” the majority replies “I don’t know” with more saying no than yes.
At the question “are you anti-communist?” the majority replies no.
That would lead to the thought that some people are unsure if something could put democracy under risk, but they are not anti it.
Would I be wrong to put French communists more or less at the same political positions of communist parties in Italy?
I don’t agree with the comparison with Wesley Clark at all. He was a good candidate on paper but had no real political experience, hence why he was such a disaster when he opened his mouth. That Ségolène has been able to launch her presidential bid as a blank canvass despite a long political career is a testament to her political skill and she shouldn’t be underestimated.
One more point worth baring in mind when considering the French presidential elections: The fact that it a direct election of the head of state is an important consideration for many people - beyond matters of policy people look for someone who can respresent ‘a certain idea’ of France at home and abroad. I believe that in a contest between Royal and Sarkozy it is quite likely that the former will pick up the majority of these votes. She has maintained her poise thoughout the last six months of high media exposure whereas Sarkozy frequently uses intemperate language as a means of making headlines.
18. *…the fact that it is…*
Are you a French citizen yourself, Mr Chip? Your knowledge of this subject is obviously quite extensive.
20. Surely it would be Monsieur Frite in that case.
*takes coat off rack*
An interesting twist:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1789654,00.html
Lots of older people in the UK suggest exactly this. I’ve always opposed it not because of what it might do to the hooligans but what it might do to the army: do we want the army to be an effective military operation, or do we want to be defended by a bunch of graffiti artists and cokeheads? But I dare say it’ll be popular.
13. Can’t compare them! Sego is fit but I wouldn’t touch KW with yours.
22. Current and past crops of British squaddies aren’t exactly choir boys.
AH Matlock, no I’m not a French citizen but I have been a dedicated follower of French politics for many years.
Nick Palmer, Royal isn’t serious about this national-service suggestion. It was intended to be a grenade thrown into the PS living room and so it has been. It’s only been a decade since France abandoned national service so she’s not going to reintroduce it .. even if she becomes president, which I doubt she will.
Many thanks to “Mister Chip” for the article - as good as anything the “quality” papers’ll be able to find to say about the subject.
I have a lot of sympathy with Matt’s views, too - the only point he didn’t make is that if the French elect whoever the Americans want least, the Russians will probably give them a good price for their gas and oil…
Thanks Innocent Abroad. I also take Matt’s point about Royal’s serene achievement in allowing herself to be seen as a clean sheet when she has a political record; ditto on Sarkozy’s hyperactivity. I just think she can’t sustain it till May (or November, if she decides to honour a PS decision to choose someone else).
“The French elect whoever the Americans want least” is less true than it looks. Hard to believe but the Americans were pleased when Chirac won in 1995 because he took a hard line on Bosnia compared with the Socialists. It’s also easy to forget that while he was a very slippery character on foreign policy, it was Mitterrand who did Bush Senior’s bidding and talked the Germans into stationing US Pershing short-range missiles to match an equivalent Soviet threat.
All that said, Sarkozy would be the most atlanticist and anglophile French leader since Paul Reynaud in 1940. You’re right this is a great potential weakness in his campaign since French people of all political hues distrust US and UK foreign policy on principle. Expect the Socialists to claim he will take France into Iran and the NATO command, take Israel’s side (he will, by the way), and adopt the British approach to the EU. Only the first of these could hurt him but it could hurt him badly unless he convinces people that he is not an anglo-stooge.
17 - That Ségolène has been able to launch her presidential bid as a blank canvass despite a long political career is a testament to her political skill and she shouldn’t be underestimated.
More Hillary than Wesley, perhaps.
Thank you very much, Mister Chip.
18. - on the other hand, it is (or was) Sarkozy’s dynamism and appetite for change that for long gave him high popularity rankings, and while Royal continues to show less of that, surely there’s a limit to the amount of damage Sarkozy’s intemperate language can do to him. Moreover, isn’t he pretty polite on the international scene? (Unlike Chirac, you might say…)
Quite Valerie. Sarkozy’s intemperate language has done nothing but good for him in the polls. While centre-left middle-class voters shake their heads when calls rioters “rabble” or threatens to clean up a crime-ridden neighbourhood with a water hose, working class and some minority voters agree with him. The reason Le Pen has done so well for so long is the abject failure of mainstream politicians to carry out their promises and to take seriously their worries about soaring street crime and North African immigration (the muslim population is now 10% of the total). Sarkozy’s language implies he is serious and that’s why people don’t mind it.
Actually, Sarkozy isn’t very polite in EU meetings. Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion.
Can Chirac stand again?
He literally can - there are no term limits - but he can’t. When last consulted, 1% of voters wanted him to run again and he’s utterly lost control of his own party. His last hope was that Villepin would take up the baton but his political ineptitude (he’s never been elected to anything, only appointed by Chirac) saw to that. Sarkozy has no rivals on the right.
Mister Chip, another question. What type of Greens are the French Greens?
O/T I am enjoying this thread, but I just have to mention this off-topic item, because so many recent discussions at PB.C have covered it. Matthew Parris of the Times is coming out in favour of Mike’s suggestion that GB may be pipped by Alan Johnson for Prime Minister when TB retires.
Here is the link for PB regulars to read ‘off-line’ as it were:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2208526,00.html
RETURNING TO MAIN THREAD
Funny you should ask about the Greens, Andrea, since they are choosing their 2007 presidential candidate as we speak. Rather messily too. The Greens have a similar profile to their counterparts in Germany - taking an unpopular pro-Constitutional Treaty position in last year’s referendum campaign.
They aligned themselves to the Left in 1994, causing the exit of their founding leader Antoine Waechter who wanted to remain non-ligned, and they entered the Jospin government. One of the candidates for the presidency today, Dominique Voynet, became Jospin’s environment minister.
During the cynical 2002 presidential election when most people voted for minority parties in the first round and let Le Pen into the second, the Greens scored well with 5.25% of the vote. When people got more serious and voted in the legislative elections, their vote shrank to 4.5% and their MP tally halved to three. They’ve since bounced back in the 2004 European elections but the past four years have been marked by internal wrangling and a CSA poll conducted May 16-17 ave them only 2% of voting intentions.
34. Thanks, Mister Chip.
Who are the potential choices (other than Dominique Voynet) for the presidential candidate?
I think I recall Madame Voynet from 2002 election night, did she lose her seat, right?
Yes, she got creamed in the Jura (sounds like prison talk, but you know what I mean). Her rival is Yves Cochet, 60, who was also in the Jospin cabinet. Like Blair and Brown, they used to be bestest mates but now really aren’t. Cochet is taking a more unapologetic environmentalist position although still sufficiently aligned with the PS to allow a share-out of constituencies in the 2007 legislative elections.
36. Thanks.
Who will be the partie communiste candidate? Marie-George Buffet (she’s the only one I can name!)?
On the right, is Philippe de Villiers running again?
Another interesting question Andrea because this time - to avoid the multiplicity of candidates that let Le Pen through in 2002 - the “radical left” looks like choosing a single candidate. On paper, the two leaders with the best scores in 2002 - Marie-George Buffet or Olivier Besancenot, trotskyist leader of the Ligue communiste revolutionaire - are frontrunners. Non-party candidates are being cited and especially that of the world-famous anti-capitalist protestor José Bové. He’s unpopular with ideological lefties, however, as “monothématique” about GM food and was conspicuously silent during the rest protests about changes to labour law. Yet, with his name recognition, Bové looks best-placed with 9% of national voting intentions.
De Villiers will certainly run. He’s been trying hard to eat into the FN vote by refocusing policy on the “islamic threat”. I think he’ll be badly squeezed by Sarkozy (incidentally, very popular with the muslim lobbies) and Le Pen.
38. It looks like Arlette Laguiller (Lutte Ouvrière) will throw her hat into the ring one last time as well and should be good for a few percent of the vote.
38. Thanks, Mister Chip.
I suppose Bove has an high name recognition in France considering I heard about him many times (and I suppose he gets more coverage in France than in foreign countries).
who will decide the “redical left” candidate? Parties members or party leaders?
Another question (sorry!): why do le Partie Communiste usually poll well in La Reunion?
On the communists and La Réunion, I have to confess I don’t know. One reason would be that, even though La Réunion is fully part of metropolitan France, the population’s GDP per head is a fifth of that of the national average.
Ditto on how the far left candidate will be chosen. As far as I can make out, it will be via a series of forums of the various mini-groups as well as other anti-capitalist organisations - closer to the Iowa caucus than than say the New Hampshire primary. There seems also to be an element of the tail wagging the dog since Bové knows he has leverage and is refusing to let Besancenot, Buffet and Laguiller stitch up a deal without the say-so of the many anarchic strands of the “social movement”. Smells a lot like George Galloway and Respect, non?
41. Thanks. I see on the Greens website that their primaries results are too close to call with just 2 votes between the top candidates and so they’re recounting them.
Do you have more news?
No news yet. This Green candidate election has become very bitter, involving a recount, constant recourses to the rulebook, threats of legal action and the examination of the results by a statutory commission. It looks like the party directorate will choose between Voynet and Cochet on Tuesday morning. Voynet’s staff say she will walk away if they choose Cochet but, if they choose her, she will call another round of voting because the new leader will require greater legitimacy than this mess offers. Either way, they haven’t helped their chances of raising their seat tally next year.
Two polls out today make strangely uncomfortable reading for Sarkozy. A CSA poll for Le Parisien, Aujourd’hui en France and i-télé reveals 49% want Chirac to sack Villepin as prime minister. Another poll, by Ifop for le Journal du Dimanche, shows 39% want Sarkozy appointed in his place with the nearest rival - employment minister Jean-Louis Borloo - at 25% and defence minister Michèle Alliot-Marie trailing at 13%.
This looks pretty good at first glance but the last thing Sarkozy wants is a head of steam to build up for him to replace Villepin. In fact, most of his advisers are pressing for him to quit the government over the summer and begin open campaigning for the presidency. The French premiership is famously a kiss of death for presidential ambitions: witness Michel Rocard, Edouard Balladur, Lionel Jospin and of course Villepin himself.
Sarkozy’s self-belief means he thinks he could buck this trend but why take the risk? Much better to leave Villepin limping into the September “return” of the political season or to replace him with an unthreatening safe pair of hands like Antoine Rufenacht, the 67-year-old mayor of Le Havre and Chirac’s 2002 campaign manager.
Mister Chip, thanks for an excellent article - hope you’re still about to answer questions:
1. Assuming it is a Sarko-Sego race, what do you think the final result will be in the 2nd round? - I think something like Sarkozy by 52-48 or 51-49.
2. Has any sitting Prime Minister ever been elected President during the Fifth Republic - I know the recent attempts (Chirac in 88, Balladur in 95, Jospin in 02) have all failed, but has it been done prior to the 1980s?
3. How do you see the whole Chirac issue playing out? I think I’m right in saying that as President he has immunity from prosecution? Do you see him facing lawsuits once he has left office, or might his successor pardon him like Ford did with Nixon? Might he try and “cut a deal” with say Sarkozy, and ease his passage to the Elysee in return for immunity? Does France have statutes of limitation similar to those which have proved so helpful to Berlusconi in Italy?
4. Finally, do you still expect de Villepin to run, and hence we could have two UMP candidates like we had two from the RPR (Balladur & Chirac) in 1995?
I hope this isn’t too many questions, and many thanks for your time!
Double Carpet, or may I call you Double?
1. I agree with your assessment; Sarkozy will win fairly narrowly - maybe a re-run of Mitterrand/Giscard in 1981 at 52/48. Political analyst Jean-Luc Parodi made a solid point in the press this morning following Royal’s tough comments on crime: Barre, Balladur and Jospin “lost their respective presidential elections by being too focused in advance on the second round they hadn’t yet reached”. Assuming she even gets to May, she is going to run constantly into the problem of addressing two very different audiences: the PS base of public-sector employees and the wider public. Sarkozy, on the other hand, has so reshaped UMP policy that he won’t need to do that.
2. No, not one although Pompidou was only out of office for a few months in 1968-69 before he became president. Apart from him, it’s a sorry list including several previously hot tips for president - Raymond Barre, Jacques Chaban-Delmas, Michel Rocard and Alain Juppé.
3. I’m amazed Chirac hasn’t tried long before now to do a deal with Sarkozy on immunity like Yeltsin did with Putin. He’s reaching out now he has no friends left but it may be too late. Sarkozy knows the private Clearstream inquiry wasn’t Villepin’s doing and he also knows that Chirac’s endorsement would not even be an advantage. I don’t know on the statutes of limitations but I don’t believe he would be covered.
4. No way Villepin will run now. There was a chance while he had some momentum and rode high in the polls because this compensated to some extent for his total lack of party support and funding. Sarkozy, as party chairman, has announced he will hold primaries in January and only one candidate will then receive the financial and logistical backing of the UMP. Sarkozy has 80%-plus support from the party base. Villepin’s plan was never to run in the primaries but to emerge late in the campaign as a national unifier between Sarkozy and (it was expected at the time) François Hollande, PS first secretary and Royal’s husband, or Laurent Fabius, a ridicuous weather-vane who’s on the far left this week. Villepin’s approvals now languish around 25% and Royal is perceived in the public mind as the unifier.
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