FRANCE:With 6½ weeks until the first round of the French presidential election, the campaign offers plenty of suspense but little passion.
The emergence of Francois Bayrou, the leader of the pro-Europe, centrist UDF as "third man" in the campaign has been the main novelty this year. Mr Bayrou continues to narrow the gap between himself, the socialist candidate Ségolène Royal and the right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.
For the first time, an opinion poll conducted by the LH2 Institute yesterday showed Mr Bayrou winning 20 per cent of the vote on April 22nd. That compared with first-round scores of 27 per cent for Ms Royal and 28 per cent for Mr Sarkozy.
There are still seven percentage points between Mr Bayrou and Ms Royal, but before Christmas the difference was 25 points. If Mr Bayrou beat Ms Royal to the run-off, polls show he would win over Mr Sarkozy on May 6th and become France's next president. But nearly half of French voters say they could still change their minds.
President Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen, who faced each other in the 2002 run-off, are both wild cards in the campaign. Mr Chirac will declare his own intentions on television between the March 8th-9th European summit and the March 16th deadline for candidates to submit their applications to the constitutional council.
The outgoing president is not expected to stand for a third term in office. But a Chirac failure to endorse Mr Sarkozy, who is from his own political "family", could hurt the right-wing candidate. In his latest speech on foreign policy, Mr Sarkozy at the same time praised and subtly criticised Mr Chirac.
Mr Sarkozy praised Mr Chirac's "firmness" in the former Yugoslavia, his "lucidity" in keeping France out of the Iraq war, and his "decisive action" on climate change. But he launched barbs at the "cultural relativism that says some people are not made for democracy" and at Mr Chirac's failed attempt to "go it alone" in diplomacy with Iran.
Mr Le Pen says he is still far short of the 500 signatures from elected officials which he needs to stand in the election. The extreme right-wing candidate has filed more than 20 lawsuits against people he accuses of intimidating mayors into withdrawing their signatures on his behalf.
If Mr Le Pen is not allowed to stand, it will raise serious questions about French democracy. He won 18 per cent of the vote in 2002. Yesterday's poll showed Mr Le Pen scoring 14 per cent in the first round, but he has traditionally won several points more than his poll ratings, because Le Pen supporters are reluctant to admit to voting for him.
Some analysts believe that many self-described Sarkozy voters will in fact vote for Mr Le Pen, and that Mr Sarkozy's real share of the vote is thus lower than thought. "The four [ Mr Sarkozy, Ms Royal, Mr Bayrou and Mr Le Pen] could all end up in the 20 to 22 per cent range on the first round," predicts Hervé Algalarrondo, editor-in-chief at Le Nouvel Observateur magazine.
The candidates give thematic speeches on topics like agriculture, defence and Europe. What has emerged so far is more a mosaic than a real sense of what any one candidate stands for. Ms Royal has seized the initiative on one symbolic issue; the announcement by the Franco-German aeronautics group Airbus that it will cut 10,000 jobs, including 4,300 in France, to remain competitive with Boeing.
Airbus employees will strike today, and Ms Royal will discuss the restructuring plan with the German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. Her promise to impose a "moratorium" on lay-offs if she is elected and make French regions part owners of the company is unlikely to please Ms Merkel.
Despite the uncertainties, a Sarkozy/Royal run-off still appears most likely.
Ms Royal stumbled from mid-January until mid-February, after Mr Sarkozy's inauguration as the right's candidate and her own string of foreign policy gaffes. But she has regained most of the ground since a fine television performance on TF1's I Have a Question to Ask You on February 19th.
In what may prove to be the most memorable moment of the campaign, a man in a wheelchair fought back tears as he asked Ms Royal about treatment of the handicapped. She rushed to his side, placing her hand on his arm, to comfort him. Millions of viewers must have wondered if Mr Sarkozy would have had the same compassionate reflex.
Mr Sarkozy's greatest weakness, polls show, are questions about his "sincerity" and "closeness to French people". But he invariably scores higher than Ms Royal for "competence" and "status as a statesman".
A recent study by IFOP showed that Mr Sarkozy still frightens 53 per cent of the French. This reaction was explained by Thomas Piketty, the director of a new economics institute in Paris and one of dozens of intellectuals who has felt compelled to declare his choice in the election. "When [ Sarkozy] starts a speech, you have the impression he doesn't know himself where he's going, that he's high on his own power," Mr Piketty said.