Charles Bremner - Times Online - WBLG

La France Tranquille

Here is the antidote to an excess of French politics and forgive a brief digression into the sky.

Seen from a thousand feet on a sunny Saturday morning, France is a picture of tranquility. For months, the French have been absorbed by a presidential campaign that enters its final week today. With its promise of change and a new generation in power, the race has gripped the country. You can hear the argument everywhere, not just in the media, but at bus-stops, work places and cafes -- and even in the sky.

When you cruise in a small plane over the towns and countryside, the densely populated Ile de France is a vision of peace, order and prosperity. It is the ideal of candidates' speeches and the idyll envied by visitors. Twinkling in the spring sun, even the banlieue housing estates -- home to the 2005 riots -- look less grim, enfolded into the rolling landscape with rivers and village churches. You can see this from pictures that I snapped yesterday, flying around Paris and Normandy from Moisselles, the grass airfield tucked into the northern suburbs, where my elderly aeroplane is based.

Central Paris is only 12 miles away, but you take off over maize fields then forest and after three minutes you are over the Oise river and L'Isle Adam, a much-painted town that was home to Honoré de Balzac.

The Oise flows into the Seine, with barges hauling the fuel and materials to keep Paris running. The sun glints on hypermarket parking lots crammed with Saturday shoppers and then the horizon fills with green and yellow fields. It is only from the air that you can see how many châteaux are scattered around the Paris area, most of them well hidden from the roads. If you fly up the Seine [left] but steer around Rouen, a carpet of unbroken countryside rolls below the wings until you are over the coast half an hour later.

[Monday election update from newspaper here]

My moment with Sarko

You have to admire the French appetite for politics. Nicolas Sarkozy had been interviewed for 1 hour 20 minutes before I got my 20 minutes with him on France 2 television last night. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, had submitted to the same ritual the night before. Not many countries would put up with so much political talk on prime time.

Arlette Chabot, the France 2 (main public network) anchor; asked me to play l'Anglo-Saxon and push the favourite for the presidency on the usual areas of contention. Sarko came back with his polished and plausible defence of the French line. If anyone still imagines that a President Sarkozy, an admirer of the United States, would reverse four decades of l'exception française, here's a flavour of what he said.

We can expect the usual fireworks at European summits. "I want to change the way we look at Europe," said Sarko. He will push hard for new tariffs -- called European preference -- on imports to the Union. Peter Mandelson, the EU's (British) trade Commissioner has got everything wrong, he said. "Why should we have to open our markets when the Americans don't do so? I want reciprocity. I want Europe to protect us from globalisation and not become a Trojan horse for globalisation."  Sarko did say that, if elected, he would work closely with the five other big EU states -- Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland. He even called Britain "the world champion" of managing the currency for the benefit of the economy.

Bayrou's Royal romance

 

There are two views of Ségolène Royal this morning. 1) The Socialist candidate for the French presidency is a brilliant tactician who has just locked down her victory over Nicolas Sarkozy on the May 6 run-off election. 2) Royal is an irresponsible risk-taker who has just blown her credibility along with that of the Socialist party.

The conclusions arise from Royal's courtship of François Bayrou, the centrist loser in Sunday's first round (last post). I'll explain, but first a request for suggestions. This evening I have the task of interviewing Sarkozy on foreign policy on France2 television. He is to be grilled live for 90 minutes on his presidential plans and they have kindly asked me to do the foreign affairs slot, which starts about 21hGMT . Any ideas for clever (and polite) questions to box in Sarko on Europe, Atlantic relations etc ?

On Bayrou: Yesterday he issued his long-awaited verdict on the race.

Bayrou the best friend

  Two days after he was shoved out of the race for the French presidency, François Bayrou is in a sticky position.

The man who re-invented the centre of French politics and won a respectable 18 percent is no doubt enjoying the sudden flattery from the two candidates who want his endorsement and his voters in the May 6 final. But while the pioneer of the "extreme centre" has been recast as king-maker, he is now being forced to put his money where his mouth has been for the past three months.

Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, has made the most overt and logical grab.

[Ségo and Sarko claim their Bayrous in Le Monde cartoon]

Sarko and suffering France

With the dust settling from Sunday's first round, it is clear that two main factors will decide whether Ségolène Royal can come from behind and win the presidency of France on May 6.

The Socialist will triumph if enough wavering voters judge Nicolas Sarkozy, the rightwing radical, to be too dangerous to elect. She also needs to achieve un sursaut in her own campaign.

Sursaut is a useful word meaning a sudden jump or burst. Royal has to inject new energy and inspiration into a campaign that is still worrying her followers, even her biggest loyalists. She was positively wooden in her 'victory' appearance last night, droning on for too long and reading her text as if she was addressing a town council.

The duel is Sarkozy's to lose. The arithmetic gives him the upper hand and support in his own camp is solid. The left has never been so weak, with 36 percent of the total vote on Sunday, of which 26 percent went to Royal. Sarkozy's 31 percent of the vote was huge in comparison with rightwing candidates in recent decades. The Socialists were nevertheless thrilled because their candidate scored about the same as Francois Mitterrand in 1981 when he went on to win power from Président Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

So it's President Sarko or President Royal

After all the expectations of surprise, we are going to have a Ségo-Sarko run-off for the French presidency.

In a record turn-out of well over 80 percent on a glorious spring day, voters gave the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy a distinct lead over Ségolène Royal, the Socialist in the 12-candidate first round. Preliminary results showed 30 percent for Sarkozy and about 26 percent for Royal. François Bayrou, the centrist challenger who hoped to knock out Royal, was relegated a dozen points below to about 17 percent and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far right National Front fizzled to about 11 percent, according to the Ipsos and Ifop institutes.

The figures may change a little but the line-up is clear. France will now have a classic two-week run-off pitting left against right, albeit of a younger, more modern variety, than we have seen before. François Hollande, the party leader and partner of Royal was immensely relieved that the Socialists have not been eliminated as they were in 2002. The run-off would be a race between the "candidate of the outgoing government and Ségolène Royal, the candidate of change," he said. "There will now be a broad gathering around ... Ségolène Royal," he said.  France must understand that "Royal is the only candidate for change".

French race finishes. Ségo hails Blair

Here they are for the last time. From Sunday evening only two of these 12 faces will be left in the French presidential race. The final batch of polls today all suggest that the two-week run-off will be the long-expected left-right duel between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy.

But the undecided vote remains extraordinarily high at about 30 percent. Of course François Bayrou, the centrist, and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far right have been proclaiming their certainty that they will make it into the final. Bayrou, at least, is still in with a chance.

In Nice last night, Le Pen predicted a "tsunami" of support on Sunday (my moment with Le Pen in today's paper). Bayrou, down in his Pyrenean home, spent the day fulminating over an editorial in Le Monde which decreed that Royal must reach the run-off because the exclusion of the Socialists would somehow be a denial of democracy. The editorial, by Jean-Marie Colombani, the longserving boss of France's most august newspaper, gave Bayrou an opportunity once again to pose as a humble musketeer fighting "the good old connivence among the political, financial and media establishment."

Royal roused her followers in Toulouse, but more interesting to report was her unexpected tribute to Tony Blair on France-Inter radio this morning.

Bayrou packs stadium. Where is Mrs Sarko ?

François Bayrou pulled off his bet that he could fill the Bercy stadium last night. About 17,000 fans turned up to cheer their hero in the venue that is usually home to big sports events and rock concerts. "No other candidate has dared do this," the man from the "extreme centre" told the adoring crowd. It's true, the other candidates have avoided the risk of empty seats and stayed away from the biggest Paris stadiums.

Bayrou gives the impression of floating on a cloud despite the consensus in the political world that he is done for. The polls today are contradictory, with Ipsos and BVA showing Bayrou sliding further behind Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal while Sofrès shows the centrist catching up on them. Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far right still lurks within striking range of the final, given the one third of voters who remain undecided. 

Whatever they are saying in public, Royal's team remain very worried about the possibility of a Bayrou surprise in Sunday's elimination round.

Choose your French hero

 

All of France's main presidential candidates are casting themselves as revolutionaries who will lead the country to a radiant new future, yet they are all laying claim to the past.

Few heroes from history have been left untouched as Sarko, Ségo, Bayrou and Le Pen have cited them as models for their own imagined destiny. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, has claimed as her patron saint Joan of Arc, who was kidnapped long ago as the icon of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front. She has also invoked Olympe de Gouges, a feminist martyr who died on the revolutionary guillotine in 1793. This week Royal laid claim to the mantle of the late François Mitterrand, the Socialist president from 1981-95, in whose office she served as a young civil servant. "La force tranquille is standing before you," she told a rally in Nantes. La force tranquille was the famous slogan that took Mitterrand to the presidency in 1981. [above Sarkozy as de Gaulle, Royal as Mitterrand in le Canard Enchaîné]

Bayrou's model is Henri IV, the 16th king who introduced religious tolerance, but this week he added to his list of grands hommes Jesus Christ, Charles de Gaulle and Gandhi -- because they stood, like him, "for resistance against violence and the established order."

The cheekiest icon grabbing has been performed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the rightwing candidate. Barely a Sarko speech goes by without references to Jean Jaurès, the 19th century father of French socialism. This has provoked the intended indignation from Royal and other guardians of the leftwing pantheon. Marie-George Buffet, the Communist candidate, wondered who Sarkozy would grab next. "Now we've had Jaurès, soon he will be quoting Lenin to us," she said. It is interesting to note, in passing, that the French communists still see the late Vladimir Ilyich, founder of the Soviet Union, as a hero.

This week, Sarkozy added the late Pope Jean-Paul II to his heroes' list and he also tried to shore up his Gaullist credentials. He dropped in by helicopter for a photo-opportunity at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, the eastern France home of the late general and shrine to his cause.

Inside dope from Ségo's man

You can see why François Hollande did not get to run for French president. He's far too nice a guy. I reached this conclusion while spending a couple of hours talking with the Socialist Party leader on a train from Paris to Lyon yesterday. He was on the way to Grenoble to campaign for Ségolène Royal, the presidential candidate, who has been his domestic partner since they both attended the civil service college in 1980.

Hollande, who is refreshingly normal in a profession packed with super-egos, showed no annoyance over the fact that The Times has just endorsed Nicolas Sarkozy. He gave me a good view of the campaign ahead of Sunday's first round, which he insists is far from won, and of the brutal duel that he expects will follow between Ségo and Sarko. Royal will win on May 6, he says, because voters will prefer her feminine, humane and socially aware leadership to the vision of a sectarian, rightwing France promised by Sarkozy.   

François Bayrou is still a threat but beatable if the left pulls together, he said. More of that in the newspaper today. First the obvious question. What can it be like inside a couple  -- with four children together -- when the woman overtakes the man in the career that they share?

Betting on an odd French campaign

Five days until the first round vote, few people I know are willing to bet on who will be the new president of France. The British bookmakers who are taking record wagers on the race decided weeks ago that Nicolas Sarkozy [above] is the certain winner (Such betting is, of course, illegal in France but the odds are being quoted by French media).

There has never been such an open race for the presidency of a modern nation. After months of campaigning, about a third of voters still have not made up their minds. In addition to Sarkozy, three others among the 12 candidates have a plausible chance of making it to the final. Ségolène Royal, François Bayrou and Jean-Marie Le Pen are all confident that they will be in the May 6 run-off. Here's the  state of play from today's Times plus a few notes from an odd campaign.

Nouvel music for Paris

 

Paris is finally to get a full-sized concert hall to compete with those of the other great capitals. After 23 years of dithering by city and state, the design was unveiled yesterday by Jean Nouvel, who has won the project for the Philharmonie de Paris. France's star architect said he tried to get away from "shoe box" and "terrace" style symphony halls. He wanted to make a monument for the city's skyline. Judging from his model, his fractured, layered, all-aluminium, edifice will fit the bill when it opens in 2012.

On the subject of the bill, the 200 million euro costs are, naturally, coming from the tax-payer, with 45 percent each from the state and the Paris city council and 10 percent from the regional admininstration.

Doctor Nicolas and Monsieur Sarko

Nicolas Sarkozy was on Europe 1 radio this morning (video) praising Britain as a model that France should follow when it comes to dealing with unemployment. France, he also said, is suffering compared with Germany and its other neighbours because everyone else works more. That was Sarko the liberal reformer talking.

But then the new sulphurous Sarkozy took over, rambling about the genetic predetermination of paedophiles and homosexuals. "I have never had the slightest urge to rape a child..." he remarked. Really ? You could feel much of France choking on their croissants. Does Sarkozy really have to play so hard for the voters who favour Jean-Marie Le Pen of the National Front ? [satirical poster above] The candidate tackled that question in Libération, this morning: "In the name of what is it wrong to win over voters for the National Front ?" he asked in a hostile interview with the leftwing newspaper.

I apologise if I've been focusing a little too hard on politics lately, but it's inevitable with the elections dominating French life this spring. For masochists or those just tuning in, here's the state of play in an Op-Ed piece in today's Times.               

Comedians and the French presidency

 

It's not often that a comedian's impression of a politician makes me laugh out loud. Nicolas Canteloup [left], a rising star in a rich field of French imitators, has got me and much of France chortling over the past week with his version of Gérard Schivardi, one of the candidates for the presidency.

Gérard who ? Schivardi, a 56-year-old bricklayer and mayor of a southwestern village, is one of the 12 official contenders for the Elysée Palace. A radical leftist who is backed by the mysterious Trotskyite Worker's Party, Schivardi was unknown until he somehow gathered the endorsements to qualify for the official campaign.

France's absurdly egalitarian campaign law, which took force yesterday, has elevated Schivardi to brief celebrity. He is being given equal air time and public exposure with Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolène Royal and the others although his public support lies below the 0.5 percent floor where the pollsters' meters start twitching.

The hilarious thing, which the imitator is skewering on his morning radio slot, is that Schivardi is almost unintelligible. Through his dense south-western twang and bursts of incomplete sentences, it is only just possible to grasp that he hates the European Union and wants the state to guarantee lavish public services for all villages. In Canteloup's version, Schivardi just utters noise with a nasal sound and a translator conveys what he is saying -- after downing a double pastis for southern inspiration .

[The Europe 1 clip starts with Canteloup's version of Frédéric Nihous, candidate for the Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Tradition party.]

Sarkozy doesn't get his chocolate

                                                                      

  An Easter visit to a chocolate maker seemed like a good idea for Nicolas Sarkozy. The favourite to win the French presidency next month is trying to show that he a warm-hearted guy and no longer just France's top cop.

Yesterday afternoon I waited with colleagues in the sunshine outside Henri Bouillet's, one of the best chocolatiers in Lyon, for the conservative candidate and chocolate fan to drop by on a campaign stop. Unfortunately for Sarko, he was also awaited by Gérard,  a loud-mouthed anarchist,  a couple of  dozen demonstrators and a clutch of youths of Arab origin with hoods [in picture with 'You're not welcome' sign].

France hails fast (expensive) train

  Let me bring a railway train into the heated argument here this week on the relative merits of the French and "Anglo-Saxon" ways of organising life. In French eyes, the sight of a sleek express hurtling through the countryside at 357 miles per hour (574.8 kph) has done more than a ton of statistics to prove Gallilc excellence to the world.

The new world speed record for a conventional train was set on Tuesday by a souped-up TGV express running on the new Paris-Strasbourg line in the Champagne region. [read  on-board report from The Times' transport specialist Ben Webster and English-language official site]

President Chirac and all the candidates to succeed him next month saluted the feat as France put aside its grumbling to admire an achievement that is seen as a slap in the face for the nation's detractors.

Scribbling for power in France

The pile of politicians' books on the side of my desk [left] rises by the day. The latest, fresh off the presses this morning, is Ensemble, by Nicolas Sarkozy (XO Editions). The right-of-centre candidate was Interior Minister until last week and he has been campaigning for the presidency for years yet he has just had time to muse for 158 pages on his inner self and his vision for France.

As usual, Sarko is overdoing it. French politicians are record-holders in literary output, but even they usually manage only about one book a year. This is Sarkozy's second. Only a few months ago, he scored a summer best-seller with Témoignage (XO), a 280-page memoir and manifesto.

In his latest oeuvre, Sarkozy, favourite to win the presidency in May, tells us yet again that he has matured. "The young man that I was, in love with adventure and ready to sacrifice all for his ambition, has calmed down as an adult," he says.  It is hard to see how Sarko imagines that citizens will fork out 14.90 euros to learn this when he said much the same in last year's book, which has sold a claimed 350,000 copies at 16.90 euros and now has an English-language version, Testimony (Harriman House).

While politicians in other countries often wait to leave office before unburdening themselves in print, French politicians, or at least their ghost-writers, are astonishingly prolific. Every homme or femme politique feels a duty to write and they always claim to be devoting spare time to their latest ouvrage.