Word: bayrou
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...Early election returns showed Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) candidate Sarkozy winning around 30% of the vote, versus nearly 26% for Royal - largely in line with what recent polls had projected. But the strong, 18.5% showing by Francois Bayrou of the Union for French Democracy party casts the centrist in the role of possible kingmaker going into the second round. The weight of the Bayrou vote was further enhanced by the electoral whipping of extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who in France's last presidential race in 2002 shocked the nation by making it into the final...
...Until recently, simulated second-round scenarios favored Sarkozy over Royal - though most also found him losing to Bayrou. For that reason, many Sarkozy backers have long prayed for a Royal matchup. But there are signs the contest may not be a Sarko slam-dunk after all. First, the last poll simulation found Sarkozy-Royal ending in a 50-50% tie. Meanwhile, Sarkozy - who built his hard-line, law-and-order reputation as France's Interior Minister - has sparked outrage among rivals and even consternation among his backers by embracing crime-fighting policies and immigration proposals that some critics have likened...
...vice-president of the European Parliament. While mainstream conservatives backing Sarkozy's tax-cutting, market-friendly economic polices may overlook his repeated pledges to help Le Pen voters "out of their ghetto" and into his camp, Moscovici warns that the hard-right lean will repel most people who supported Bayrou. "Sarkozy reminds me of Berlusconi," Moscovici comments. "The Italian right forgave him every excess, the Italian center fled...
...problem with that partisan analysis is that Royal rejected calls to merge campaigns with Bayrou. And now, even after Sunday's results, Bayrou is demarcating his territory. In a speech after the first results came in, rather than conceding defeat Bayrou declared victory for "a large and independent center [party], capable of speaking and acting above outdated cleavages". Promising "from this evening on, French politics will change and will never again be the same," Bayrou warned that any presidential finalist wanting his endorsement will have to acknowledge "a new kind of politics is being born and the hope...
...curmudgeonly 79-year-old Le Pen, however, still appears to attract the bulk of the anti-immigration vote, running fourth with 14% of the vote (five points behind Bayrou). He can't win, of course, but his persistent appeal shows that for part of the French electorate, the most utile vote remains one that declares a pox on the French political class as a whole...