Is France seeking the muddle path?

Up until now, Nicolas Sarkozy seems to have benefited most from the uncertainty, and six people in ten now expect him to win. His campaign has been more solid and disciplined than the others, with recurrent themes of work and order, responsibility and merit. But whereas he first appeared as a market economy champion, promising tax cuts, pension and healthcare reform, his tone has changed in the past weeks. He has become vague on curbing deficits and has called for protectionist measures. Whereas he first tried to portray himself as a centre Right candidate, quoting emblematic figures of the Left, Jaurès and Blum, the rise of centrist Bayrou has pushed him into a more Rightist stance, assiduously courting the voters of far Right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. More than anything else, he has been struggling to soften his image as a tough, cold-blooded, aggressive man, feared but not loved.

In the socialist camp, there is a consensus that Ségolène Royal has frittered away the initial momentum of her candidacy. The lack of clear ideological line and positioning on many crucial issues, as well as her foreign policy gaffes have been at the core of her inability to lead the presidential race. Though she initially had the courage to question some of the Socialist Party’s dogmatic economic stances, she also called for a classically Leftist welfare state expansion. Though she advocates more public participation and bottom-up democracy in politics, she has increasingly emerged as an autocratic figure. Though in order to win a theoretical second round, she would have to convince far Left voters, she has repeatedly taken more conservative stances, for instance calling citizens to learn by heart the national anthem and fly a flag from their window on Bastille Day. All this led many socialist sympathisers to question her ability to be a serious president and pushed them in the arms of other candidates, mainly centrist François Bayrou. Fearing a poor performance, several leading socialist figures even called over the weekend for an alliance with Bayrou, a blow to her campaign, and a proposal she immediately rejected.

Bayrou first surged in the polls promising to transcend the classical Left-Right divide and heal the country by uniting it in a grand coalition. But his momentum has stalled mainly because of the vagueness of his programme. Voters have grown suspicious of what he really stands for. And whereas he has worked hard to portray himself as an anti-Paris establishment simple working farmer, he has actually been a deputy in Parliament for more than two decades.

In the midst of all those blurred ideological lines, one would have expected at least one candidate to stick to his traditional creed —- far Right Jean-Marie Le Pen, running for the fifth time on his beloved themes of immigration and security. But even he has surprised observers, trying to woo more moderate right wing voters and immigrants! He praised the latter as the branches of the same beautiful tree called France, and promised to succeed in integrating them into mainstream French society.

Almost every candidate added to the confusion by committing surprising gaffes. Nicolas Sarkozy recently suggested that paedophilia and suicide are merely genetic flaws, Ségolène Royal called for sanctions against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan apparently forgetting that it has been out of power since 2001, and supposedly arch-conservative Jean-Marie Le Pen recommended masturbation instead of condoms to meet young people’s sexual needs.

So after months of unfocused debate dominated by shifting opinion polls and short-lived dramas, the French presidential campaign can still create striking surprises. No matter which candidate emerges, the malaise to be healed is huge. According to a recent poll, 54 per cent of respondents consider their country to be in decline and only 12 per cent think the opposite. Change is critically needed. Both candidates and voters know it. Never has the mobilisation been so important with millions of new registered voters, consistently high attendance at rallies, buzzing internet campaigns. All candidates have described a dysfunctional France, blocked and immobile, that needs to be healed and stand upright again. But will any of them have the clear vision and consistent strength to do so? Apparently none has yet completely convinced voters of being the one.

The writer is a French journalist