Salut!

May daze

May is almost with us and all roads, proclaims Var Matin as perhaps we would expect, lead to the Var.

Salut! has naturally been en fête this weekend, but that has nothing to do with the loveliness of spring in this corner of France and everything to do with reasons it cannot go into without breaching its promise to be as football-free as possible.

On top of that, my elder daughter has been moaning about the dominance of French politics in recent times. I will therefore restrain myself today, and on both counts.

There will be this, and no other, mention of Sunderland's promotion and for today at least, there will be this and no other mention of that lesser contest, the race for the Elysée. Save to say - combining the two taboos - that perhaps Ségolène could have done with a French version of Drumaville to make the dream of the poll to your left come true.

Stuck in the middle with Tina

Where will their votes go?
Picture: thibauld

There is no alternative, the Iron Lady used to say. The mantra became known by its acronym Tina.

And maybe there was no course François Bayrou could realistically take but to reject any idea of lending his support to either Nicolas Sarkozy or Ségolène Royal.

If you make such a virtue of your centrist position that nearly seven million people vote for you, then it would be pretty close to an insult to them to say after your own elimination: "Right, that's that. Now you can transfer your support to Sarko/Ségo."

In other words, there's a certainty about the middle-ground position you've adopted that makes any endorsement of the mainstream, polarised parties impossible to stomach.

While I am tempted to offer the thought that some of the most dangerous people on the road are those who hog the middle lane of the motorway, I realise that this won't do either. Such drivers can be dangerous but are probably more irritating than anything else, and so it is with Bayrou.

This is what he said today:

I will give no instructions for the vote. I consider that the French people who voted for me are citizens free to make their own choice.
Nicolas Sarkozy, with his close links to business and media powers, his taste for intimidation and threat, will concentrate powers as never before ...(and)...risks worsening the social rift through policies that benefit the richest.
Ségolène Royal seems to have better intentions in terms of democracy...(is)...more attentive to the fabric of our society. But her programme is full of state intervention, perpetuating the illusion that it is up to the state to do it all - exactly against what we need to restore our creativity and balance.

It is difficult to quarrel with much of that. Bayrou stresses the drawbacks of each playoff contender and goes on to announce how he plans to build on his modestly impressive success in the first round of the presidential elections.

Singing his heart out, but for whom?
Picture: Weinaiko

He is creating a new political entity, the Democrat Party, which will contest what amounts to the general election in June to decide the composition of the new parliament.

But if he is hoping the achieve balance-of-power clout in the new assembly, he must have a reasonable idea of the presidential candidate with whom he could most comfortably work.

It is interesting that in his remarks as reported so far, he had negative things to say about both Sarkozy and Royal. Neither, he said, was up to the challenges of putting democratic institutions right, easing social tension and boosting economic growth.

But look again and you see, unless I have missed something, that only Ségo attracted any praise.

And I wonder whether some of his first round supporters will not make the same observation and act upon it, making Salut!'s little poll seem a bit less off the wall than its consistent big lead for Ségo seems.

Interesting to note, too, that Le Figaro's first poll of the second phase has it at 51-49 for Sarko, much closer than the initial poll in Sunday. Nothing, as the paper headed its page one report, is decided just yet.

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.

Sarko v Ségo on May 6

Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal will fight it out on May 6 to become the next president of France.

segosarko
Picture: olenka54

That is the outcome of the's first round of the presidential elections, in which Sarko came comfortably top of the poll while Ségo, five points behind, did enough to ensure the Parti Socialiste would not suffer the humiliation of elimination at this stage as in 2002.

With almost all votes counted, the official - interior ministry - figures put Sarkozy ahead of Royal with 31.11 against 25.84 per cent. Read the continuation page for more update details.

In a massive turnout, though not at just under 84 per cent a record, the so-called Third Man, François Bayrou, lagged well behind on 18.55 per cent, confounding those - especially in Britain - who tipped him to cause a major surprise.

And the Front National's 78-year-old leader Jean-Marie Le Pen's confident predictions of winning through to round two proved to be so much hot air. He collected less than 11 per cent and admitted he had misjudged the mood of the French public.

None of the fringe candidates collected as much as five per cent of the vote.

The result leaves Sarkozy clear favourite for the Elysée.

"The people of France have spoken, and they have spoken with clarity," he said, hailing the massive turnout as a victory for French democracy that gave voters a straightforward choice between opposing visions and values.

Royal greeted noisy, chanting supporters with a promise to accept the major responsibility of fighting for the chance to reform France "without brutalising it".

The decisive factor will be the tactical voting of Bayrou supporters. Most seem likely to back Sarkozy rather than Royal, though she will now fight hard on a Stop Sarko ticket in the coming two weeks and may well be tempted to seek a deal with Bayrou.

France decides in massive poll

Although I am not allowed to tell you just yet where the votes have gone, I can say that France has come close to setting a new record turnout for a presidential election in the Fifth Republic created half a century ago.

An estimate, by TNS SOFRES Unilog for two broadcasting organisations, TF1 and RTL, put the poll at 86.5 per cent, 2.5 per cent up on the previous record set in 1965 in a poll won by Gen de Gaulle. But other estimates put the proportion slightly lower, and short of the record.

The high level of interest seemed to contradict an eve-of-poll report that the French considered the campaign to have been of poor quality.

It also triumphed over problems with electronic voting machines. Three parties - the Socialists, Greens and Communists - joined forces to condemn the experiment, available to 1.5 million of the 44.5 million electors.

As so often with new technology that is intended to make life better and more effective, they succeeded in some areas in slowing the voting process to a frustrating dawdle. Some voters were stuck in queues for two hours; others gave up in despair.

For my part, I decided to spend a short part of election day sitting on Cabasson beach overlooking the presidential holiday retreat, Fort de Brégançon. I even had my first dip of the eyar in the Med - pleasant but a bit nippy. That thought would appal Stephanie, the Canadian Erasmus student I met on a recent flight from Newcastle to Nice and who had swum in the North Sea off Whitley Bay in March.

More later on the election, and whether the names I used - Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal - to set the ball rolling in our little straw poll the other day are those that will contest round two.

Gothenburg II, Götheborg III

This magnificent specimen, a slow boat from China, leaves Nice tomorrow and will be presenting a feast for London eyes by May 19.

Overcoming the urge just to go home after a tiring drive around the Gorges du Verdon, I caught the Götheborg III for a ceremony marking her week-long stay in the Mediterranean port.

The ship is a stunning wood-built replica of the original Götheborg, which sank in the harbour of Sweden's second city - which we know as Göthenburg - after returning from China laden with silk, tea, porcelain and other treasures in 1745.

Most of the cargo went down with the ship but even what was salvaged allowed the merchant venturers behind the project to register a 15 per cent profit.

And did I say replica?

Here, Bengt-Göran Nillson, the chief engineer, is pointing out one of two pieces of old oak from the original ship to show that "this isn't really a replica but the product of a big repair job".

The vessel was constructed in Gothenburg in a project that began after divers explored the sunken wreck more than 20 years ago. Scores of sponsors helped provide the funds and she was launched in 2003 and began her recreation of the voyage to and from China two years later.

Bengt-Göran is a mariner nearing retirement but so steeped in the lore and lure of the sea that if you cut into his veins, salt water would flow.

Thanks to my hosts, Carole Arnaud-Battandier, international marketing manager for the Scandinavian low-cost airline Sterling, and Anthony Bright, responsible for marketing and sales for Gothenburg, Bengt-Göran provided a splendid tour of the ship.

"Everything has been done to keep faithfully to the 18th century model," he said. "But there is a big one difference. Conditions for the crew in those days were terrible whereas we have up-the-minute aids and equipment. We make our own fresh water, there is electricity, a modern kitchen, three generators and a complete hospital."

The cruise passengers on board the Astoria, berthed nearby in Nice harbour, probably have the edge on sophisticated facilities and luxury, but this didn't stop them lining their decks to gaze admiringly at the Götheborg.

The 10 guns - you saw one of them in my last posting - are for the firing of salutes, though if Sweden declares war on someone before the Götheborg sails home to a guaranteed festive welcome in June, they could be modified to handle live ammunition.

In case you were wondering why Götheborg III, it is because Götheborg II came to a sticky end off Cape Town in 1796.

See Götheborg III if you can.

Gothenburg I, Götheborg III

A sailor's view, it seems, of a naval assault on the beautiful harbour front of Nice.

Nothing to do with the election, though. Watch this space for an explanation.

Day of decision

Picture: Môsieur J.

All the polling that's fit to be published has been done, for the first round at least. No more findings can (legally) appear after today, but will resume with a fury on Monday.

My views on French opinion polls have not changed. The samples seem too small, the methodology is questionable in at least two respects - telephone polling to fixed lines only, and no account taken of the Dom Toms (that is to say 2.3 million potential voters in the overseas territories).

It has not been a particularly lively campaign, but there has been plenty of good debate and knockabout mudslinging to keep up our interest level.

Most people reading this have no vote. But they all care enough about France and its future to be intrigued as to the outcome of Sunday's polling. Let us see whether we proceed to the playoff final with the two characters above, or some other combination of the four front runners.

Just a suggestion, but I would love to see a string of three word comments appearing below. Just give the two names you want to see in the second round, separated by and.

I will set the ball rolling.

Unsound thoughts

A campaign for the Elysée that has style in abundance but lacks conviction, cohesion, substance and sometimes basic competence.

Picture: ParisDailyPhoto

And behind it, at least nominally, the weak thunder of a herd of disagreeable elephants.

It is fair to say I have not been the campaign's most passionate champion. Only yesterday, over at the Guardian's Comment is Free, I was accused of being condescending towards its figurehead.

So you would feel pretty safe in your judgment if you supposed that the one person I could not bring myself to support, when registering my non-voting preference in the French presidential elections, was Ségolène Royal.

Let us take a quick look at the other 11 options, some more fleetingly than others.

François Bayrou. Ever since my old friend Mike Amos, a lifelong Tory, stood (and won) as an independent for the council in my home town of Shildon, I have tended to think of self-proclaimed centrists and independents as conservatives in disguise, unless they call themselves Independent Trotskyists or whatever.

If Bayrou headed the UMP, or if his own UDF were a bigger political fish. I might think he just about deserved a go - just as my old mum used to say she would vote Liberal if only she thought they stood a chance of winning (she confided just before her death that she'd voted for them anyway). But I still wouldn't vote for him.

Jean-Marie Le Pen. My profound affection for the Front National leader is well known. Without such people to oppose, frustrate and abuse, politics would be a lot less interesting. Sarko may consider some of his ideas worthy of thought; to me, they are crackpot and obnoxious.

Marie-George Buffet. The Communist Party seems such an outdated, irrelevant relic of past, valid struggles as well as grotesque authoritarianism, that Buffet might be seen as a joke candidate. But she clearly means well, and comes across as decent and likeable, if wholly unelectable.

José Bové ought really be tucked up his prison bed come election night, but has been spared a start to his sentence long enough to see out his campaign. I share his dislike of McDo and am suspicious of GM crops, but wouldn't mount attacks on fast food premises or rip up politically incorrect fields.

Then there is a ragbag of far lefties, another rightwinger, a pro-hunting candidate and a green. Forgive me for passing over them without further mention and please feel free to bring them into your comments.

We are left with the original Punch and Judy show of Sarko and Ségo.

Nicolas Sarkozy is not as bad as many people think. He has correctly identified some of France's problems - on the economy, jobs, terrorism, crime and immigration.

But far too many of his solutions strike me as extreme; sometimes it is as if the same thought has occurred to him, too, causing him to backtrack a little.

What is more, like a good many footballers and their managers, he talks a good game but often fails to deliver. Consider the totality of his record as interior minister or, as the French call it, No 1 Cop.

If I were not already apprehensive on my own account about a Sarkozy presidency, I would allow myself to be put off for life by the nature of some of the people outside France who very keenly want him to win.

Incidentally, he will also learn soon enough how shallow their support is, when they turn on him as he defends- as he will be expected to do, if elected - French interests every bit as illogically and selfishly, so it will seem to our friends on the Right, as did Chirac. And when he caves in to this or that street protest, as I suspect he will, their rage will know no bounds.

My decision to award this phantom support of mine to Ségoléne Royal has nothing to do with my appreciation of her womanly charms, for which I was so roundly castigated not so long ago.

Nor should it be taken as a warm-hearted endorsement of her campaign, which I regard as disjointed and disappointing.

But when you come from a Daily Herald-reading, Labour-voting family background, it takes a lot more than I have seen from Sarko to shake you out of a lifetime's habit.

It doesn't matter that I worked for the Daily Telegraph for 29 years; I didn't, after all, inhale. And they employed me as a reporter, not a politician. British papers have a long history of giving jobs to reporters, sub-editors and specialists who, privately or less privately, think the "wrong way". Other people are recruited for the polemic.

As it happens, I did vote all those years ago for Mike Amos, or rather for one of the other bogus independents who stood for the council with him. But that had nothing to do with ideology, everything to do with friendship and a youthful streak of rebellion (directed on this occasion against a tired and arrogant Labour establishment).

Otherwise, for good or for bad, I have stuck to principles acquired early in life and voted consistently Labour, save for the times Labour exasperated me so much that I voted for no one.

Ségolène Royal is unlikely to make a great president. If, one way or the other, she gets a strong prime minister in place after the June parliamentary elections, she may not turn out to be an especially bad one either. And if the alternative is Sarko, that is perhaps the best we can hope for.

All the deceptions of Labour and New Labour have left me a fairly cynical supporter of any mainstream party of the left. But with all the reservations that I have expressed here and elsewhere about her own suitability for high office, and for all my resignation to a Sarko victory, Ségo gets my non-vote.

Bienvenue a Salut! II

New home
Picture: sammo371

Welcome to Salut!'s new home.

I hope and believe that regular readers will quickly see the wisdom of this move. You will still find most, if not all, of what I do here back at its original location but this is where the site's development will be concentrated.

Your thoughts on the change are warmly invited. Until further notice, it is entirely up to you to post comments to either site, to both of them or to neither.