François Bayrou is struggling due to the squeezed centre but may end up kingmaker, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC
HE IS the best-liked candidate, the man voters say they would most enjoy going for a drink with.
His early warnings about the dangers of France’s huge debts and deficit, largely ignored five years ago, are now key election themes for the two frontrunners.
His manifesto blends liberal economics with a firm defence of France’s social model, and his profile – cultured, rural, with a face that you could imagine engraved on a coin in 50 years – fits fairly well with what French voters tend to like in their leaders.
And yet for all this, François Bayrou is struggling to impose himself on the election campaign.
Having seen his opinion poll ratings surge in January, he is now fighting to contain a slump in support that has seen him dip below 10 per cent. A vote that low could leave him in fifth place in next Sunday’s ballot – a long way from his third-place finish, with almost 19 per cent, in the 2007 election.
Standing for the centrist Mouvement Démocrate, Bayrou has a fraction of the resources available to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate François Hollande. But his name recognition is high – this will be his third presidential election – and many of his ideas have been embraced by his rivals.
He wants a freeze on public spending, the “re-industrialisation of France”, and a “made in France” label to encourage consumers to protect indigenous manufacturers. One of his themes is “the moralisation of politics”, the centrepiece of which is a referendum to change the way government and parliament works.
In a field dominated by the duel between Sarkozy and Hollande, the centre has been squeezed.
Bayrou’s position has been compounded by the rise of two candidates at either extreme – Marine Le Pen of the National Front and Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the radical Front de Gauche – who have both overtaken him and robbed him of the “third man” epithet routinely appended to his name. “It’s not easy being the centrist who is trying to move away from this bipolarisation,” Bayrou said this week.
“I’m absolutely certain that there is not a route to get France out of the crisis either in the Socialist Party of François Hollande, the UMP of Nicolas Sarkozy, nor among the extremists that pressure them.”
Despite his struggles, Bayrou could still find himself in the kingmaker’s role after the first round. In a Sarkozy-Hollande run-off, the incumbent would have no chance of winning unless he could persuade a substantial number of Bayrou’s supporters to switch to his side. Both sides have already been making overtures.
French foreign minister Alain Juppé suggested Bayrou could even be in line for the prime minister’s job – an idea Sarkozy has been careful not to rule out – while Hollande’s campaign manager, Pierre Moscovici, said yesterday that Bayrou was “closer to Hollande than Sarkozy”.
The man himself has refused to reveal his intentions. He served as minister in a right-wing government and belongs to the new-Gaullist gene pool, but he is also one of Sarkozy’s most trenchant critics and is known to get along well with Hollande.
In an interview with Le Monde, he said his political views were closer to Sarkozy’s than Hollande’s, even though he felt closer personally to the socialist. “All I will say is that I will assume my responsibilities,” Bayrou said when asked if he would endorse a candidate next Sunday night.