Oft elitist French elections try a town-hall style

The "judges" – among them a factory worker, a businessman, and a job-hunting college student – were seated under a canopy of television lights. At exactly 8:50 p.m., a throbbing soundtrack filled the studio.

Everyone sat up straighter. Cameras rolled. From stage left, the petitioner – aka presidential candidate Ségolène Royal – strode to a podium.

She smiled and squared her shoulders. And for the next two hours, live on French television last Thursday night, she fielded questions from citizen-judges. Power to the people! Here was direct democracy in action.

That, at least, was the idea of the show, called "For You to Judge," on the state-owned channel France 2. It is one of a spate of new programs that feature "real people," rather than journalists or experts, interrogating candidates running in next month's presidential election.

While such broadcasts have proved immensely popular, drawing up to 9 million viewers, critics say the town-hall format has trivialized what should be a sober, profound debate on weighty national issues.

"This is participatory democracy," enthused Ms. Royal, who was adept at maneuvering around the audience's questions and shrugging off appeals from the moderator to speak concisely. "It brings the candidates and the people closer."

But in a campaign already widely criticized as superficial and media-driven, the tendency of ordinary folk featured on the new political shows to focus on their personal problems has drawn criticism. More often than not, they use their air time to complain about the size of their pensions rather than grill the politicians about the national debt.

"This election has become completely 'mediatique,' with the candidates as media icons," said Erwan Lecoeur, a political analyst at the Observatory of Public Debate, a Paris think tank. "They spend more time answering questions about health-insurance payments for eyeglasses than about foreign affairs."

The queries were a bit more serious on "For You to Judge" (À Vous de Juger) last week. But they were not what might be called hardball questions and, like her rivals who have appeared on similar shows, Royal stayed in control of the conversation.

The experience left a sour taste for Monique Khayat, the principal of a public high school in Paris who was chosen by the station's staff as one of the questioners.

She had challenged the candidate about working conditions and pay for teachers, then listened skeptically as Royal criticized the present right-wing government for cutting 125,000 education positions over the past five years.

"So you would add 125,000 positions back?" interrupted Ms. Khayat, in one of the program's rare adversarial comebacks.

"Well, not 125,000 by the start of the next school year," responded Royal. She recovered quickly, however, and said that, if elected, she would certainly try to reinstate 5,000 education-sector jobs.

After the show, Khayat described herself as less than satisfied. "Madame Royal didn't answer the questions, she wasn't clear, and her statements went on and on and on," she said.

The format has highlighted the divergent styles of the candidates. Front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy, a lawyer, managed to respond to 46 questions on the show. Centrist candidate François Bayrou, a former teacher who is prone to lecturing, answered only 27 questions during his appearance.

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