And onwards to the Elysée

Nicolas Sarkozy was right. The turnout for the first round, around 84 per cent and nearly a record, was a victory for French democracy.

Picture: Jules Aime

And the way the votes were cast was, in the end, a victory for French opinion polls, too. Despite my own reservations - small samples, telephone polling to land lines only, Dom Toms excluded, so many people undecided or refusing to say - the pollsters can hold their heads very high this morning.

Sarkozy, Royal, Bayrou, Le Pen. Wasn't that the order in which the main four candidates appeared in most if not all polls? The gaps may have finished up more pronounced but that can be accounted for by acceptable margins for error.

Picture: political barbay

What it also means is that on this occasion, braced for the worst after the events of 2002, we worried needlessly about the menace of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

It may be, as I suggested on BBC Radio Ulster this morning, that many instinctive Front National supporters saw enough of what they wanted in Sarko's manifesto to make a Le Pen vote pointless. But it doesn't matter; he was given a bloody nose and will surely not be up for another go as an 83-year-old in 2012.

Where we go from here seems straightforward enough. Sarko coasts to second round victory.

Ségo has only one way of stopping that. Assuming that the early polling reflects French opinion better than the fun poll to my left - 54/46 in Sarko's favour, and four fifths of voters in no doubt about their choice - there can be no other outcome.

But François Bayrou has six or seven million votes to play with. He cannot make his supporters vote this way or that in the playoff, of course. But he can give them a useful enough steer.

I never bought the idea of a Bayrou victory in the way that some rather silly commentators did. But he now comes into his own in terms of influence; an endorsement from him, if it went Royal's way, would make matters very interesting.

In short, she now has to come to a deal with him. That means two fingers, if needs be, up at Fabius and others on the Left who dismiss the man as just another right-winger with whom no self-respecting socialist would have any truck.

Socialism diluted to social democracy, bringing with it the possibility of an attractive united front for the coming legislative elections, must strike commonsense PS supporters as preferable to another five years of looking longingly at power from the outside.

Sarkozy is the clear favourite, and I am pretty much resigned to him winning. But it is up to Royal and her campaign team to decide whether they are prepared to settle for honourable defeat, having avoided the first round banana skin, or turn May 6 into a genuinely close run thing.

Comments

[richard of orleans]

It will be an intersting negotiation involving the presidentional and the législatives. The UDF members are all in right leaning circumscriptions following their deal with UMP at the 2002 elections.There is also a strong regional tendency based on historical allegiances to the component parties of the original UDF.

Will UDF be able to fix up a deal with the socialists which will give them the seats they need? That would be a major political recomposition. Seems a bit difficult for them to win out in their existing constituencies with socialist support, and switching constituencies would look a bit too expedient, even anglo saxon.

On the other hand what sort of deal will the UMP offer after the confrontational stance of Bayrou. My betting is no deal with the socialists and an unwritten one with the UMP.

[Robert Marchenoir]

How can you run for president and show the lack of charisma and leadership exhibited by Ségolène Royal in her speech yesterday?

Any one of the minus-5% candidates (and many among their aides) would have been more convincing than her in that exercise.

I suppose that just reflects the civil-service mentality of the left: you vote for them just because that is the thing to do. And in return, the candidate does not have to persuade the electorate that she is worthy of their votes.

Being on the Left is in your genes, you see, as Pierre Bourdieu used to explain, in a video where, ironically, he cast on Ségolène Royal the infamous label of being right-wing.

(He did not use the word genes, but that is exactly what he meant; and that seems to me infinitely more worrying than Sarkozy's view about suicidal tendencies or paedophilia having an innate element, which some research actually supports.)

Many French people take pride in being on the Left for several generations. Many will tell you: I vote for the Left because that is the way it has always been in my family.

Talk about free and autonomous thinking. Informed decision over passion. Reason over myths.

[Colin Randall]

Excellent point in your penultimate paragraph, Robert (and see my New Statesman piece, linked from Selected Writing). Anyone who has read me over a period of time will have detected the intellectual contortions at play. It's a subject I will, doubtless, one day address at length.

[frog]

Many people also vote on the Right, because that is the way it has always been in their families ? That's environment, NOT genetics !

Robert -- I agree with your first two paras, though, but not your explanation, obviously.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Yes, Frog, undoubtedly many people also vote for the Right because their family has traditionally done so -- and of course, it has nothing to do with genetics.

But they seldom boast about it this way. If you quizz them about their vote, I guess a majority of them would put forward rational motives (I am sure you understand the issue of their real motives is beyond my point).

What is truly stunning to me is that someone could actually take pride of voting in a certain way because his parents, and grand-parents, and grand-grand-parents have done so.

And this is associated, in France, with the Left, not with the Right.

That's where you see that the sense of belonging is more important to the Left than to the Right.

Of course, the associated and unspoken element in such a narrative, that comes after "we've always been on the Left in my family", is "because that's the only right thing to do". Or, if you will: "Because that makes us part of that minority, worldwide, seemingly unconnected elite Who has Seen the Light, Who Knows Better and Who is Morally Superior".

What is very interesting there is that this attitude is completely at odds with the background of many of these people, who, in a way or another, claim to be intellectuals.

Whereas, in that instance, they completely abdicate reason in favour of tradition -- and, furthermore, is not the Left supposed to despise tradition, which it holds as a right-wing notion?

[richard of orleans]

Mr Marchenoir You seem to have become totally Anglo Saxon. You are completely disconnected from reality, facts are no longer of any importance. I know many people of right and left who give all sorts of reasons for voting the way they did and have all sorts of voting paterns over the years. Many right families have been traditional UDF for example versus RPR. A charming lady said to me this afternoon that 'we have always been UDF' but not anymore 'Bayrou est un traitre'.

The left is essentially against the Anglo Saxon way of life, which seems a very sound intellectually strong argument.

[frog]

Well Robert, I haven't heard any lefties actually boasting about it, but I'll take your word for that .

It is less true now than it was, but I have met a few of the haute bourgeoisie, families with a military tradition, and of course very 'Catho', for whom the Cold War and before that the Bolshevik Menace were still going strong. Obviously unthinkable for them to have anything to do with 'Socialism', no pride involved. I once consoled a young man when he discovered that his great-uncle had been in the 'Milice'. " Forget it, he was a victim of History, he could not do otherwise."

Perhaps, anybody anywhere could take pride in the fact that their forbears stood up for the underdogs in society ?

That would result in a family narrative with a basis in fact. My family's history has it that my grandfather came home and cried after he sacked factory workers in the early Thirties.( They made turbines for the world.) His sons, after being officers in WW2, never voted for the Right.

They are all dead now, so I can't ask grand'papa what he thought about the NHS , but I have a feeling he approved. As a survivor of WW1 he brought his sons up in the good old tradition -- " On the march, you look after the horses first, then the Men, and last of all, the Officers."

So, Robert, your argument that anyone leftwing is totally deluded, because however clever,even intellectual (whatever that means !) , they are prisoners of family tradition, is equally deluded.

You seem to despise or hate the Left. I have a problem with that. Most of us are infinitely too complicated to be placed on a simple Left/Right Continuum.

As a father I am relieved that my son building roofs has a mutuel and a 39hour week, and a contrat de travail. His boss would be only too happy NOT to pay the 4 extra hours as overtime, but we are in france, and he does. The salary is still far far far too low, unless you really want to import a coupla million Chinese ?

As an observer of life in france, I've met mostly competent and helpful fonctionnaires.

Retirements and the threat of Privatisation now mean I get a smile at the Post Office instead of Mrs Miserable. One plus Point for you !

The guys at EDF and Telecoms were brilliant, and the customer service has now "disappeared". A couple of guys looked after the overhanging branches on the lines, very friendly, job for life, but the branches got cut. It was a small price to pay for a fraction of a centime on a basically unchanging bill.

It has been "Anglo-Saxonised". NOW no reply to the answerphone, or the e-mail.

Any , or every, french person who believes that solutions for french problems must come from Outside, will find a resolute opponent in me.

Comparing social class with social class, I find the french infinitely more subtle and SERIOUS in their political and economic and social analysis than the brits.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Thank you, Colin, for leading me to the New Statesman site. I had crossed it off my reading list a while ago, when most articles were accessible only to paying subscribers.

Richard, your love of provocative paradox is amusing for a while, but there is such a thing as being too clever by half. And this time, you are not even trying to be clever.

You accuse me of having become totally Anglo-Saxon. The way you say it, this certainly sounds like a dreadful vice. To some French minds, the Anglo-Saxon is the new Jew.

You go on pretending, in the next sentence, that I am completely disconnected from reality and that I disregard facts. You seem to imply this is one of the main traits of "Anglo-Saxons".

As sweeping generalizations go, this one flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which holds exactly the opposite to be true. If you are about to make derogatory statements about entire peoples and countries, you might as well try to substantiate them a bit with... some facts, precisely.

That is, if you do not want to come across as downright xenophobic. Like the French Left.

Which is, according to you, "essentially against the Anglo Saxon way of life, which seems a very sound intellectually strong argument".

The first part of your sentence is certainly true. However, I do not see how this can be qualified as "sound", "strong" or "intellectual", since this is obviously not an "argument", but a mere inclination.

The French Left is indeed opposed to the "Anglo-Saxon way of life", whatever that may mean. This does not entail their opposition is justified. Unless you think that all the Left says is true, which was precisely the point of my previous comment.

With such flimsy thinking, no wonder you do not even bother to argue about the main issue I raised: how is it possible for so many Frenchmen to pose as freedom-of-thought-loving intellectuals, and at the same time explain their vote for the Left on hereditary grounds?

The score of Nicolas Sarkozy must have dealt you quite a blow. Better to take some time to recover.

[Robert Marchenoir]

"Any , or every, french person who believes that solutions for french problems must come from Outside, will find a resolute opponent in me."

Right, Frog. This sort of martial attitudes will frighten away unemployment and poverty in no time.

Let us pretend the outside world does not exist. Let us think we are the best and brightest in the world. What works for foreigners cannot work for us. Foreigners stink. France über alles.

[Barry W]

I'm not an expert in French history, but isn't this "hereditary left" thing tied up with rampant anti-clericalism, still a strong element in some parts of France today? Logic runs something like "I like my fathers before me am anti-clerical, think the church and priests have no place in modern society; the left traditionally supports this view therefore I support the left, regardless of what its other policies might be."

[frog]

Robert -- I can't resist replying to your last to Richard .

You seem to be finding yourself among the last proponents of the Brit/US solutions to non-unique French problems, universal in economically advanced societies.

For many brits and yanks,irish, canadians, new zealanders, australians, the ThatcherBlairBush(Sarko) "solution" is not working.

Being quite open-minded, for someone of the avowed Right, have you checked out Onfray's interviews with Sarko, and have you read last week's "Marianne" ?

Long ago it was instilled in me to "know your enemy". And NO, I wasn't in the Boy Scouts .

Maybe we are now seeing the "disappearance" of the Left in French politics. Looking at the USA, UK, they have died there, or rather been killed off.

In france there is some small life-force left, but I suppose you will only be happy when the only choice left here will be between Republicans and Democrats, Tory and NuLabour, the exact opposite of democracy.

[richard of orleans]

Robert, in many posts I have justified my belief that the Anglo Saxons are a nefarious influence in the world. I believe the wars of the 20 th century were largely attributable to the imperial capitalism of the 19 th century. This is in no way racist nor comparable to anti Jewish feeling.

The 19 th century capitalism which inevitably lead to communism as a reaction against extreme exploitation is little different from ‘modern’ capitalism where globalisation is eliminating the restraining influence of the state. The same practices will lead to the same results. It is therefore of considerable importance to point out where the Anglo Saxons are leading us.

Your argument that left thinkers blindly follow family tradition is factually incorrect. I believe Royal’s family was essentially right and there are right thinking Mitterrand’s. The family tradition does exist, but on both right and left, in England and in France I think those members of the left who point to family tradition are thinking in terms of the long multigenerational struggle of the left to improve the lot of the working man. France is rightly more proud than the English in this respect since the struggle of the French left has been longer and more coherent. The social chapter exists in Europe because of the French not the English.

The Anglo Saxon’s do have a habit of ignoring facts. The Irak war is the obvious example and may bore some at this juncture. Nevertheless going to war for something that doesn’t exist, failing to apologise afterwards, inventing new excuses, totally fouling up the organisation seems so characteristic of daily life in the Anglo American world that it is a shame not to mention it.

Having been both of right and left I am now mainly agnostic. I believe both Sarkozy and Royal are contributing positively to France and I will happily accept the leadership of either one.

[SH]

Once again CR's latest post has been side-tracked by Richard of Orléans and his incoherent generalisations. He really needs to give some definitions and , if possible, stick to them.

Who or what does he consider Anglo-saxon? Is this the same as Anglo-American which he also mentions? Does his 19th century "imperial capitalism" include the French colonies or only British? How many colonies did the USA have? What about the Germans? Did the wicked Saxons corrupt the Prussians and Bavarians?

Any topic can, it seems, be used as a launchpad for his xenophobia. It's tedious, often distasteful, and his muddled thinking and slipshod language do his arguments, such as they are, no favours.

[richard of orleans]

If anyone is muddled in his thinking then it is SH. A ‘xenophobe’ is somebody who dislikes foreigners. I am married to a foreigner, my children are foreigners, all my friends are foreigners and all my daily contacts are foreigners. It is a situation that pleases me greatly. (How well do you understand simple English?)

‘Anglo-Saxon’ is a frequently used French term that I have already defined. It means America and England with other ‘Anglo Saxon’ nations NZ, Australia, Canada (excluding Quebec) considered as being junior partners and lesser villains. The Germans are totally excluded from the subject. They are considered to be France’s closest friends and equally hostile to all things Anglo Saxon. (If you take an interest in France shouldn’t you know this information already?)

‘Anglo American’ and ‘Anglo Saxon’ are indeed almost synonymous.

Almost all European nations were involved in 19 the century imperial capitalism with England being far and way the leading actor. The US had no colonies but played a major part in the British Empire by supplying huge quantities of raw materials. Notably cotton out of its slave plantations. (Did you study history?)

Now who is always ducking the subject?