The first round of the French presidential election entered its final phase this week, as attacks turned personal and record numbers of voters remained undecided.
As official campaigning began, a poll showed 42% of voters could still change their mind before the election on April 22, which will select two candidates to go head to head in a final vote on May 6.
After 12 years of Jacques Chirac, there is more interest than ever in this election, as a new generation of French politicians promises to confront high unemployment, public debt and a stagnant economy while reassuring the nation about France’s place in a globalised world.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing former interior minister, who has promised to reform the labour market, has reinforced his conservative credentials in recent weeks. He has forced a debate on what it means to be French by suggesting a ministry for ”immigration and national identity” and his tough-on-crime stance has seen him benefit from clashes between youths and police at the Gare du Nord in Paris. His opinion poll ratings have risen to between 26% and 31%. This week a poll for Le Parisien showed 59% of French people believed he would be France’s next president. Only 18% believed his socialist rival, Segolene Royal, would win the election.
Royal has sought to cement her left-wing standing after a dip in the polls to between 22% and 24% and accusations that she lacks a clear strategy. The self-styled ”mother of the nation”, who promises to listen to the people and set up citizens’ juries to monitor politicians, has fleshed out her ideas on work and the economy. But last week her ”first chance contract”, a plan to encourage small firms to hire school leavers, angered some in her party while rivals warned it could be costly and unrealistic.
Both the centrist François Bayrou and the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen have recently risen in the polls. In theory, any of the top four candidates still has a chance of making it through.
Le Pen has upped his attacks on the right-wing frontrunner. He told French TV that Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian minor aristocrat and a mother of Greek Jewish origin, was the candidate ”from immigration”. — Â