France's presidential election

THE countdown to the French presidential election—just 94 days to the first round on April 22 if Cassandra has his maths right—is getting interesting. Poor Nicolas Sarkozy is finding that becoming a father (in October) and toppling a tyrant in Libya (one day later) are no guarantee of popularity. The latest opinion polls predict that his Socialist opponent, François Hollande (on the left in our picture), will be ahead of the president in the multi-candidate first round and, assuming a run-off between the two on May 6, will win decisively. Meanwhile, France has just lost its cherished AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s, which, of course, reminds voters that Sarko once said:

If France loses its AAA, I’m dead.

But is the president’s demise inevitable? In a rather obvious attempt to boost his fortunes, Mr Sarkozy today unveiled a €430m ($550m) back-to-jobs-and-growth package (the unemployment rate is now almost 10% of the workforce). He will emphasise that only he—and certainly not Monsieur Hollande, who has never held ministerial office—has the experience to guide France through the crisis of the euro zone. Most of all, he will campaign with an unmatched energy and instinct for his opponent’s weaknesses (in 2007 he ran rings around the Socialists’ Ségolène Royal, who at the time was Mr Hollande’s partner).

Perhaps all that explains why, according to Le Nouvel Observateur, Mr Hollande, who looks more like a provincial bank manager than a world leader, is refusing to count his chickens. Throw Marine Le Pen, of the far right Front National, into the electoral mix and anything could happen: she could damage both Sarko and Mr Hollande in the first round. For an interesting reflection on how both men are plotting their campaigns, I recommend this article in today’s Guardian by Christine Ockrent, a very distinguished French journalist whose partner, Bernard Kouchner, served as health minister in a Socialist-led government and then as foreign minister in Mr Sarkozy’s government. As Mme Ockrent points out, Messrs Sarkozy and Hollande are both looking to the late François Mitterrand for strategic and tactical inspiration. After all, the wily Mitterrand served for 14 years as president of the French Republic.

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