As François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy battle it out head-to-head ahead of the second round of the French presidential election, they face very different challenges after the first round of voting. For the Socialist Party's Hollande, with victory seemingly in his grasp, the aim is to maintain the same measured approach that has marked his campaign so far. For Sarkozy, however, the success of the far-right Front National in the first round has raised a dilemma. Should he court the FN's first-round voters – or instead focus on attracting voters from the political centre? At stake are not just Sarkozy's chance of winning the election, but the future of the Right in French politics. First Stéphane Alliès and then Marine Turchi report on two contrasting campaigns ahead of the decisive vote on May 6th.
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Hollande – steady as she goes
The mood at the Socialist Party's headquarters after François Hollande's first-round triumph on Sunday mirrors that of their candidate's campaign; a sense of victory but no fervour. Hollande got what he wanted, winning the first round of voting almost two percentage points ahead of his main rival Nicolas Sarkozy. Having never deviated from his strategy of projecting himself as someone who would be a “normal president”, and having shown himself effective - in the absence of being a great crowd-pleaser - he just has two weeks to go before he can fulfil his ambition.
The mood was slightly dampened by the success of the far-right Front National, whose candidate Marine Le Pen scored nearly 18% of the popular vote. “It spoilt the party a bit,” was one reaction. But the main focus was on the success of Hollande, who himself stressed the need to keep the emphasis on unity and bringing people together when he spoke on Sunday night.
For some in Hollande's camp the situation ahead of the second round on May 6th is “extremely favourable” or even “un-losable”. They believe that the strong showing of the FN might even work to their favour by ensuring that their own activists and voters turn out in force for the second round. And there is a determination that the success of the far-right party should not blow Hollande's campaign off course.
Yes, say advisers, there will be visits by their candidate to “the France of the RER [the railway network serving Paris region commuters] and the bungalow”, a reference to the kind of areas on the outskirts of towns and cities where many disgruntled voters who backed the FN live. Perhaps, too, there will be more emphasis on secularism – one of the fears the FN played on was what it claims is the growing influence of Islam on life in France.
But above all, says Hollande's communications director Manuel Valls, the plan is for their candidate to “gather people around his manifesto and his criticism of the performance of the five-year term of office that is coming to an end”. He adds: “We must not make the mistake of addressing one section of the electorate in particular, we've seen clearly with Sarkozy that this didn't work.”
Olivier Ferrand, in charge of the left-leaning Terra Nova think tank, agrees. “In particular we must not chase after the FN electorate but should stay on our fundamental messages, about the economy, social issues, re-industrialisation. It would be absurd to get into a bidding war on the issue of immigration. That would be to relinquish our values, when our position, on the Left and in the Centre, is the majority one on this issue.”
"Sarkozy will alarm the centre"
The Socialist Party's spokesman Benoît Hamon, though, believes Hollande can win votes among the many who backed the FN in Sunday's first round. “There aren't seven million fascists in France. We have to speak to a section of them, because today Hollande is the only candidate who wants to protect them against the chaos of economic liberalism, to create extra teaching jobs, allow people to retire at 60.”
In many ways, that it may not be openly stated, the success of the FN and the failure of the radical-left Front de Gauche candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon to capture more than 11% of the vote on Sunday may have played into Hollande's hands. The fact that Mélenchon did not score the 15% or so of the vote some had predicted means that the socialist candidate does not have to worry too much about wooing the Front de Gauche voters.
Mélenchon has already declared that his voters should do all they can to “beat Sarkozy”, asking for no concessions in return from Hollande. “If Mélenchon had got 15% and been ahead of Le Pen there was a fear that he'd have been uncontrollable,” says one adviser close to Hollande.
As for attracting the voters in the centre ground – the supporters of MoDem François Bayrou who got just over 9% of the vote - Hollande's former chief of staff Olivier Faure believes their opponent will do some of their work for them. “Sarkozy will alarm them by cosying up to the extreme right, while our message on the need for an exemplary Republic will reassure them,” he says.
Hollande's promise in an earlier campaign speech at Vincennes that he would bring about “calm and tranquil change” seems to be more pertinent than ever.
Sarkozy: exit, far right?
For Nicolas Sarkozy, the UMP candidate and current president, the second round campaign appears to raise a stark dilemma after he came second in the first round. Should he focus on attracting the centrist vote – or the much larger body of voters who backed the FN last weekend? Choosing either group seems almost certain to alienate the other, as well as triggering yet more divisions within the UMP and its political allies on the Right and Centre Right (1). It seems clear, though, that Sarkozy is going all-out for the FN voters.
Certainly among those in the centre-right there is already unease about the direction the second round campaign is taking. “We will be vigilant,” says Dominique Paillé, who is close to former government minister Jean-Louis Borloo and who is a candidate in the June legislative elections for the centre-right Radical Party (PR). “We cannot go out and try to convince FN electors regardless of our own values,” he told Mediapart.
Though Paillé emphasised the support of the PR for Sarkozy in the second round, he made clear there were conditions. “We must also seek the votes in the centre, those of François Bayrou,” he said. “We will watch out to make sure there are no concessions undermining our convictions: on Europe, there should be no questioning of gains we have already made; and on humanist values there must be no backsliding, for example linking the right to social benefits to nationality. There are lines that must not be crossed.”
Yet the signs are already there that Sarkozy intends to court the far-right vote at the expense of the centre ground. Immediately after the results were announced on Sunday, Sarkozy is said to have declared in private: “And to think that I was being advised to campaign on the political centre ground.”
For him and many on the right of the UMP, the success of the Front National shows that he was correct to campaign on issues favoured by the Far Right such as immigration and crime. His assistant spokesman Guillaume Peltier, once of the FN and former key adviser to right-wing politician Philippe de Villiers, said: “If we had not had these strong themes Marine Le Pen would have scored higher. More than ever the French want a strong France, a strong right, a strong president.”
This policy is seen by Peltier and others as a vindication of the campaign strategy set out by his political mentor and Sarkozy's official adviser Patrick Buisson. Buisson, a controversial journalist and political analyst with past links to the Rar Right, had been criticised by some within the UMP for pushing the campaign too far to the right.
But for Thierry Mariani, government minister, member of the UMP's campaign strategy team and head of the party's hard-right faction the Droite Populaire, the first round result not only shows that the Buisson strategy was correct, but also that Sarkozy has weathered the international financial crisis better than other European leaders who faced elections. “Look at the incumbents in Spain and Great Britain, they were annihilated!” he told Mediapart.
“We keep to the same line,” he insisted, saying that while those who voted in the centre and those who voted FN may not share the same concerns, they all expressed the “same rejection of Hollande”.
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(1) The main party on the right in French politics is the UMP, or Union for a Popular Movement, which was formed in 2002 in a merger between the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (RPR) and other smaller parties. However there are still other parties and groupings on the centre-right with close historical links to the UMP, including the Radical Party. At the other end of the political spectrum is the Droite Populaire, a hard-right faction within the UMP itself.
"A defeat for Sarkozy could lead to an implosion"
Though officially the message is that the campaign should address “all French people”, the first clues to the second round strategy came in Sarkozy's initial public comments after the first round votes were declared. His emphasis was on France's national frontiers and identity, immigration, the fight against industrial de-localisation, crime and the need to preserve the French “way of life”. All these comments were aimed at those who had voted FN in the first round.
When the following day Sarkozy visited his campaign headquarters he again made clear his approach. “I have heard you,” he said, referring to the FN voters, whom he said had to be “respected” and who merited a “response”. Then later on Monday he addressed farmers – a number of whom traditionally vote FN – in the Indre-et-Loire département. On May 1st he will stage a “celebration of work” at the Champ-de-Mars in Paris, dedicated to “those who work hard” and who “suffer, and who no longer want people to be able to earn more when they don't work that when they do”.
The message was reinforced by government minister Laurent Wauquiez, who said they had a duty to listen to those who were “suffering”. He added: “Nothing annoys an FN voter more than that you don't take notice of the message they have sent.”
This focus on the right by the campaign team worries moderates in the party and its political allies. “Yes, we need a strong France,” said Radical Party president Jean-Louis Borloo, referring to Sarkozy's campaign slogan. “But only if it takes into account humanist values.” For Dominique Paillé, Borloo is fighting a solitary and largely fruitless battle. “He is not influencing the content, I don't know that he'll be listened to,” he told Mediapart. “Very few of us here [among the radicals] are given prominence.”
Some of the big names on the right have also expressed concerns about the direction of the second round campaign, albeit in guarded language. UMP senator and former prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he wants Sarkozy to take into account “the values that are those of a balanced France”. And foreign minister Alain Juppé brushed aside suggestions that the second round campaign would be based entirely on the far right vote. “All that is of no importance, we will be speaking to all French people,” he said.
Meanwhile the former sports minister and current UMP senator Chantal Jouanno called for a “much more balanced” message. “The right must stay true to itself and bear its own values which are those of a meritocracy, work, authority – which goes hand in hand with respect – competitivity and sustainable growth,” she said.
At stake, say many on the right, is not just Nicolas Sarkozy's bid for the presidency or even the UMP's performance in June's legislative elections, but the alignment and structure of the French Right itself. Some even doubt whether the UMP, pulled as it is in opposite directions towards the Right and the Centre, will survive. “A defeat for Sarkozy could lead to an implosion,” predicts Dominique Paillé. This could involve moderates from the UMP moving to the Centre, perhaps creating a new party or joining the Radical Party, with a new grouping on the right.
Alain Juppé, who was involved in the creation of the UMP in 2002, has already warned of the dangers. “If Nicolas Sarkozy were to lose, a number of us would do all we could to ensure that the UMP keeps its cohesion, because to recreate the RPR and the UDF would represent ten years of failure for those who would be then in opposition.”
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English version: Michael Streeter