THE DYNAMIC of European Union political debate is punctuated with great regularity by national elections. The rhetoric is sharpened, specific issues acquire a new salience, and often decision-making goes on hold or is long-fingered until “normal” service is restored and an inconvenient, temporarily excited public is no longer in imminent danger of upsetting the apple cart.
That reality makes April’s French election almost an Irish election and our interest, much more than academic. And not least, when an opposition Socialist Party is sabre-rattling about the threat to national sovereignty represented by the proposed European treaty’s budget oversight provisions. Before Christmas its candidate, François Hollande, spoke about renegotiating the treaty’s terms when elected. However unrealistic such a pledge may be, should it become an election issue it could well affect President Nicolas Sarkozy’s stance at both the January and March EU summits that will sign off on the text. Hollande has also strongly opposed the “golden rule”, incorporating deficit and debt limits into national constitutions.
The lacklustre Socialist leader has now effectively fired the starting gun on the election with a series of sharp attacks on Sarkozy in which he has described him as the "president of the privileged" and on another, disputed, occasion as a " sal mec" or "nasty gurrier". "We are all deeply shocked," said Jean-François Copé, the head of Sarkozy's easily shocked UMP.
The latter has also been upping the ante, flagging new policy initiatives with a populist flavour. They include, with unemployment at a 12-year high, “important decisions” on jobs by the end of January, a so-called “social VAT” increase to help fund welfare, and the introduction in France, if necessary ahead of the rest of the EU, of a “Tobin tax” on financial transactions. But the VAT increase, for one, is a dubious gamble that could easily backfire – it’s difficult to sell price increases as a popular measure – and it will scarcely narrow the steady Hollande lead in recent polls.
They suggest that Sarkozy and Hollande should easily outdistance National Front leader Marine Le Pen and centrist François Bayrou in the first round ballot, leaving Hollande to take the second against the president by a margin of up to 10 points. Green candidate Eva Joly and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, also on the ballot, are likely just to help to make an outright win in the first round unlikely.