Word: bayrou
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...This time, the Socialists are less concerned with the six far-left candidates, none of whom is polling as strongly as in 2002, than they are by the challenge of Francois Bayrou, the insurgent centrist whose spike in the polls since January comes largely from center-left voters disappointed with Royal's often vague, confused and gaffe-prone campaign. Pollsters had expected that Bayrou's pre-spring bloom would have withered by now - after all, his centrist Union for a Democratic France (UDF) has only 5% of the seats in the National Assembly. Instead, he has found real traction with...
...Bayrou has a potent vote utile argument of his own: Polls regularly show that he would have a better chance than Royal would have of beating Sarkozy in the head-to-head second round on May 6. His appeal has prompted several former Socialist ministers to break rank and urge their party to promise to govern in coalition with the centrists, prompting outrage from party leaders. But if Royal does make it into the second round, their tune could quickly change...
What's evident is that the exiles are holding up a mirror to French society itself. Their description of a dysfunctional France has become a central theme in the election campaigns of all three key candidates for the French presidency. Nicolas Sarkozy on the right, centrist François Bayrou and Ségolène Royal, the Socialist Party's candidate, are all taking aim at a France they describe as "blocked" and "immobile." And they are making promises galore to resolve many of the issues that have sent these young French abroad in the first place. Royal wants...
...Scholar and a Gentleman James Graff's profile of François Bayrou [March 26], although most interesting, seemed to give an unfair and somewhat distorted impression of the French presidential candidate's intellectual background. I am writing here as an academic, not a politician. Bayrou is a farmer's son, for sure, and a gentleman farmer, probably. But while he is no product of a French administrative or political grande école, he is a doctor of literature. He is, therefore, quite an erudite individual. No nitwit! And an excellent, learned writer in his own right. Françoise...
...defeat of the referendum on the European constitution shows, the French people share our positions, not theirs. Elsewhere, Madame Royal is struggling to lure the extreme left behind her; Sarkozy tries to seduce our voters with Le Pen positions while trying to demonize Le Pen; and Bayrou keeps flipping to the left when attacking the right, then flopping to the right as he takes on the left. It matters very little which of these three we face in the second round...