Le Blog
Bad idea v No idea
Posted by Darren Straker - 08 May 2007 09:02
Pandering to all sides has left Sarkozy preaching to a divided church
"What happened, why Sarkozy?" I asked my neighbour from the adjacent balcony last night at 10pm. We were standing outside looking across Toulouse to Le Merail, the hot spot ghetto of Toulouse, waiting for the cars to spontaneously ignite . 'It's easy, the choice was between Sarkozys' bad idea and Ségolènes' no idea' he said.
Interesting I thought to myself as another fire engines siren dopplered its way across town. ...
Could there be one delicious last twist?
Posted by Colin Randall - 04 May 2007 15:48
Sarkozy looks set to win the presidential race in France but it could still be a Battle Royal...
So the ladies at my wife's gym were wrong. To a woman, they were agreed that Nicolas Sarkozy had shown himself to be arrogant, pig-headed and flaky. Ségolène Royal had won the debate.
But no. Look at today's final polls before campaigning officially ends and they show that if there has been any movement in public opinion since Wednesday night's grand televised duel, it has been in Sarkozy's favour.
...The Rumble in the Jungle
Posted by Darren Straker - 04 May 2007 10:04
Ding ding, round 11. The marathon title bout between the two French heavyweights is close to finishing. Who'll emerge with the belt and who'll be on the canvas?
"Step right up, step right up." Billed as the heavyweight show down for this pre-election debate, this had everything - accepted heavy weight, bruisers favourite, an outsider with a south paw jab that would knock out an elephant, but out of form,...how would it pan out?
Like 20 million other viewers I strapped myself in and waited for the bell - Sarko's George Foremen verses the incumbent Royal's Muhammad Ali ...
Et le verdict?
Posted by Shirley Curran - 03 May 2007 11:48
Shirley Curran reports on the electrifying TV debate between the two French Presidential candidates
Last night’s electoral debate had record audiences. This morning I hear ‘Ségo won – she was stronger than we expected – she looked Sarko straight in the eye and knew her stuff’ but I also hear ‘She was arrogant – it was intolerable to have her interrupt almost every sentence M. Sarkozy pronounced – she lost her cool – she is trying to be all things to all people, using ...
Tête à Tête
Posted by Jean-Jacques Bascoul - 02 May 2007 18:23
How France is waiting with baited breath for the showdown between Royal and Sarkozy
Last 23rd April, following the first round, the battle had only just started, as Frederic Niel wrote in his blog. The 2nd May in the evening, 9 o’clock precisely, we’ll have the final showdown between the two contestants.
The TV debate between Segolene Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy is important. France is waiting for it with bated breath. In fact, it has been waiting for quite a long time, since 1995, ...
When the third man comes first
Posted by Frederic Niel - 27 April 2007 12:23
He came third in the first round but is Bayrou the kingmaker of the French election?
Clearly, this presidential election is not like the others. Normally the first round cuts out all the candidates bar two, who face each other in the finals two weeks later.
This time the third candidate, instead of retreating quietly to his cage to lick his wounds in silence, has managed the feat of inviting himself along to the second-round campaign.
Indeed, the two finalists – the right’s Nicolas ...
La deuxième étape
Posted by Darren Straker - 26 April 2007 16:37
France needs economic reforms ... it's just a question of which method she chooses to implement them
If you live on the south eastern coast of blighty you may have experienced a sudden, short off shore breeze last Sunday night at about 9pm. This recent meteorological phenomenon was the result of 60 million French citizens simultaneously gasping with relief when they realised they hadn't waved the keys to the Elysée to an extreme right wing nationalist like Le Pen as they did in 2002; in the process ...
Election surprises
Posted by Chris Stacey - 24 April 2007 13:26
Chris Stacey describes what the media didn't see coming as he continues to join in chants of "Segolène, Presidente"
Months of campaigning, speculations and opinion polls and… the obvious happened! The two big candidates, Segolène Royal and Nicholas Sarkozy, qualified for the second round. In some ways, this is a victory for the pollsters and the media, who predicted this outcome many months ago. However, they failed to predict the two really surprising things about the election results.
After the failure to predict his rise in 2002, no ...
Who will pull through?
Posted by Bill Brown - 24 April 2007 13:09
Bill Brown thinks Sarkozy will come out ahead in round two of the French elections
Eighty-four percent turnout tells us that the French actually care about this election. They have been led to believe, and they probably do, that for once there are real and important choices to be made. In theory, yes. In practice, the questions centre on whether either of the 2nd round candidates have the clout and wherewithal to push an agenda for change, or whether they'd get bogged down in the ...
And then there were two
Posted by Shirley Curran - 24 April 2007 12:50
Shirley Curran crunches the vote numbers to predict whose support each French candidate is likely to have on May 6
So there we have it. The French have voted with their hearts and shown their true colours with 15 percent of the first round votes going to the eccentrics, and now there is a straight left versus right contest. At least, this time, there is a ‘Partie Socialiste’ involved. The lesson of 2002 has been learned (when Josspin was knocked out in the first round and Le Pen gave the ...
The French vote “against”…
Posted by Frederic Niel - 23 April 2007 17:12
Journalist Fred Niel's says the first round of the French election shows France really cared about this vote but the battle has just begun...
What a surprise! What surprise? Well, there isn’t one. That’s the surprise… No-one was expecting everything to go as predicted in the polls: Nicolas Sarkozy came on top in the first round, and will take on the second-placed Ségolene Royal in the final round of the presidential elections, on the 6th May.
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who took on Jacques Chirac in 2002 after pushing aside the Socialists’ Lionel Jospin, ...
A reader writes
Posted by Alan Trevarthen - 23 April 2007 10:24
Alan Trevarthen squeezes in some of his thoughts on the French election just ahead of a three hour luncheon
When I first caught sight of 'Le Blog' I started reading with apprehension, but congratulations, it contains some of the most perceptive comments I've seen yet. No easy achievement because explaining to the Anglophone world the tactical skirmishing and strategic thinking involved in the French Presidential elections must be almost as hard as explaining cricket AND American football to the French. Before Le blog I had been ...
The election's giving me a headache
Posted by Frederic Niel - 22 April 2007 10:05
French journalist Frederic Niel explains why the poll makes you want to reach for the aspirin
Here goes the typical conversation in the France nowadays:
So come on now, who are you going to vote for?
I’m still hesitating. Generally, I vote Green in the first round and Socialist in the second round of each presidential election. But when Le Pen got to the second round in 2002 – to everyone’s surprise, since he was behind both Chirac and Jospin in the polls – I was ...
Trapped, it's time to vote strategically
Posted by Vincent Petit - 22 April 2007 09:59
The election from the perspective of 30-year-old Parisian Vincent Petit
What I think of the elections?
Generally: it’s a right, but above all it’s a civic duty. You could vote for anyone – I wouldn’t care who – as long as you voted. Nothing frustrates me more than people who abstain, or who don’t register for voting.
For the elections on Sunday, as usual I find myself trapped between an unconvincing left-wing candidate, whose only merit is her gender, and ...
Lying to the pollsters
Posted by Colin Randall - 22 April 2007 09:53
Journalist and long-time French resident Colin Randall gives us his take on the presidential elections as people head to the polls
A few months before she died, my mother told me: "You remember all those years I said I'd vote Liberal if I thought they had a chance? Guess what? I did anyway."
A Gallic version of my mother's hidden spirit of defiance has been at play in French politics in recent years. Whereas she was prepared to defy family tradition and expectation, and go quietly against the grain in a ...
