FRANCE NOW:THE LAUNCH event for Nicolas Sarkozy's election manifesto on Thursday was a model of political stagecraft. With hundreds of journalists gathered in a darkened room at the Équinoxe conference centre in Paris, filtered spotlights projected the colours of the French flag onto the walls while dozens of staff handed out copies of Sarkozy's "Letter to the French People", a 34-page document that begins, in the president's hand, "My dear compatriots".
At his election rallies, Sarkozy’s entrance is accompanied by a piece of specially commissioned music that sounds like a James Bond soundtrack; on Thursday, he marched with presidential solemnity to the lectern and took his place on a spartan blue stage dominated by a tricolour and his election slogan, “A Strong France”. But for all its technical brilliance, it was hard to miss the subdued tone that marked the event. Sarkozy spoke for 90 minutes, answered some pro-forma questions and made a low-key exit.
This has become a theme of France’s presidential election campaign. Crowds have dutifully turned out for the candidates as they cross the country, the 24-hour news channels have played and replayed every image and pollsters have gleefully pored over the figures.
And yet the tone is strikingly understated. One poll this week suggested abstention in the first round on April 22nd could be close to 32 per cent – higher than the score it gave any of the candidates.
Even Thomas Hollande, whose father François is the front runner to win the election, has remarked there hasn’t been quite the same excitement around the socialist’s campaign this year as there was over that of his mother, Ségolène Royal, five years ago. And that despite the fact Hollande is much better placed than his former partner to become the first left-wing president since François Mitterrand.
The reasons for the changed mood are not hard to see. Unemployment has risen to 10 per cent, the economy is crawling along at 1.7 per cent growth and the economic crisis has cast a pall of gloom over the country.
In 2007, the two leading candidates ran on platforms that spoke to people’s aspirational gut feelings. Sarkozy’s rupture with the past and his promise to reward hard work would usher France into a new era of progress and growth, while Royal’s ideas on participative democracy and the transformation of troubled banlieues would renew the republic.
Five years later, the themes are of consolidation and retrenchment. Both Sarkozy and Hollande know they have limited room for manoeuvre. Fearful of being cast as irresponsible, both promise to balance the budget – a feat last achieved 40 years ago – within five years, and say this can only be achieved with higher taxes and lower spending. And yet, equally fearful of being portrayed as the candidate of austerity, both are studiously vague about where they would make those cuts.
In 2007, Sarkozy sold himself as a man of audacity; this time his message is protection. If there is a theme in the 32 pledges contained in his manifesto, this is it. He stresses the fight against terrorism in the wake of the killings in Toulouse, control of European borders, restrictions on immigration and his experience as a leader in a time of crisis. Things might be bad, Sarkozy implied on Thursday, but a socialist presidency could lead to economic ruin.
But incumbency is a double-edged sword. Sarkozy ends his term as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern French history, and Hollande is counting on this popular rejection, combined with a manifesto that gives just enough to the left-wing base without spooking centrists, to push him over the line. The personal qualities he claims for himself (a consensual instinct, a modest lifestyle, consistency) are those he thinks will remind people of what they don’t like about the incumbent (divisiveness, a flashy lifestyle, incoherence).
With two weeks to go, most polls show Sarkozy has overtaken Hollande in voting intentions for the first round – by 29.5 per cent to 27.5 per cent, according to the latest survey by Ifop. However, the socialist has so far held onto a firm lead of 54-46 per cent in a run-off between the pair.
A lot will hinge on how the candidates currently below Sarkozy and Hollande perform on April 22nd. The revelation of the campaign has been Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a one-time Trotskyist and Socialist Party member standing for the small Parti de Gauche, who has climbed to 13-14 per cent and third place, ahead of the National Front’s Marine Le Pen, in some polls.
His rise could work in one of two ways. First, having a charismatic firebrand chipping away at his left flank could undermine Hollande’s momentum or pull him into a rhetorical battle that alienates prized centre-ground voters. The scenario that haunts the Socialist Party is a repeat of the 2002 election, when the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen took advantage of high abstention and a badly split left to win a place in the play-off against Jacques Chirac.
Alternatively, Mélenchon’s surge could benefit Hollande by persuading left-wing (particularly working-class) voters to come out and cast their ballot, and then transfer their support to the socialist in the run-off. The Ifop poll showed 81 per cent of Mélenchon’s voters would switch to Hollande in round two. Moreover, optimists on the left point out that Mélenchon is taking working-class votes away from Marine Le Pen of the National Front, which reduces the potential vote transfer to Sarkozy.
The apparent paradox that has seen Sarkozy rising steadily in the first round, but unable to close Hollande’s lead in the second, is mainly down to the shifting fortunes of the lower-placed candidates. So far, Mélenchon has been pushing up the overall left-wing vote, while declining support for Le Pen and centrist liberal François Bayrou has checked growth on the right.
All of this leaves the two front runners with delicate challenges in coming weeks. If Hollande is to win, he must stick close to Sarkozy in the first round and then persuade the bulk of Mélenchon’s voters to switch to his camp, while also ensuring he takes a big enough chunk of the centrist vote away from the incumbent. For Sarkozy, the key is the same as it was in 2007: containing the National Front by drawing voters away from Le Pen while persuading Bayrou’s centrists to join his cause.
Speaking to these different audiences while sacrificing as little coherence as possible – that may be the piece of stagecraft that decides the election.