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After first-round elections, a clear choice for France
With a near-record 84 percent turnout, French voters send two presidential candidates with vividly contrasting visions – and characters – to the May 6 runoff.
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the April 24, 2007 edition
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PARIS - On May 6 France faces its first real presidential choice in 12 years: Nicolas Sarkozy wants to shake the French system to its core by establishing an entrepreneurial spirit and better ties with the US. Ségolène Royal, France's first serious female contender, wants to reshape a generation of socialist policies without creating strife among a diversifying French population.
A massive Round 1 turnout Sunday for the most anticipated political event in Europe this year is a clear mandate for "change" in France, though what kind of change is unclear.
Ms. Royal was immediately endorsed by three left-wing candidates. But whether she or Mr. Sarkozy will most benefit in the second round from supporters of "third man" François Bayrou's is unknown. Mr. Bayrou, whose politics of unity attracted a strong showing of 6.5 million swing voters, holds a press conference Wednesday.
The May 6 runoff will showcase two sharply contrasting visions – and characters. Images from the final days say much: Sarkozy astride a horse at a bull ranch, and a white-clad Royal in working-class suburbs – a combination of Joan of Arc and Mother Teresa.
Sarkozy's 31.1 percent score on Sunday is higher than his own camp predicted, and a daunting hurdle for Royal – though she defied predictions of an early demise, with a healthy 25.8 percent.
"It confirms [Sarkozy's] strategy to be the first viable candidate in France to openly declare he is a man of the right," says Arun Kapil of American University in Paris. "In France, 'right' is a sulfurous word. Democrats in the US don't want to be called 'left'; in France no one in the Gaullist camp, not even Jacques Chirac, has said he is à droite [on the right]."
In an election considered a crossroads for a nation unable to reform its welfare state, Round 1 may have created a new voting class – centrists. Bayrou's 18 percent is significant for an electorate traditionally split between left and right.
"For so many people to ... want a mixture of both left and right, has created a new center position," says Christopher Mesnooh, a Parisian lawyer. "I think that's the real story out of Sunday. No one has recently been able to pull that off before, and Bayrou thus may have a significant role to play."
Sunday's 84.6 percent turnout is only a fraction smaller than the record 84.7 percent registered in 1965, France's first popular election, which pitted the venerable Charles De Gaulle against François Mitterand.
Sunday's vote narrowed the field from 12 candidates to two. It also marginalizes small parties. The newspaper Le Monde said the elections signify a "weakening of the extremes" in French politics. The era of ultranationalist Jean-Marie Le Pen, which dates to 1956, is probably over in France after he managed only 10.4 percent Sunday. "Sarkozy ... brought Le Pen down to a level where he ceases to matter," intoned Le Monde.
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