Great French Election Blog

If you want the daily pulse of the French election campaign in English and as it's happening, I highly recommend you keep up with Boz's blog, French Election 2007. A full Associated Press bureau couldn't do it any better.

Comments

[Boz]

Thanks for the link! Ironically, this is an election for one of the most important posts in the world, and there's not many of us English speakers talking about it. I look forward to your updates from Paris.

Boz

[SB02]

Sorry, but this analysis is flawed..First, 26% is the current result from one poll - CVA. Other polls have her between 23%-26%, so her numbers are relatively stable, but not at 26% . What we've observed from the rise of Bayrou is that there was a first wave of migration to Bayrou from the social democrat wing of the PS and then a second wave from centrist UMP voters. Even with that migration, Sarkozy is still fairly stable, for the time being at around 27%-30%. In addition, you can't really really compare this situation to Bill Clinton's. First, the true left in France is actually declining minority of the voting population (most research puts it at around 35% of the electorate max which has actually been declining over time - this was not the case in the US where the left strives for broader appeal rather than adherence to ideology). Second, the electoral landscape in France is very different than that of the US. It is very possible that as Royal moves to the centre to woo back those social democrats that the left wing of the PS will migrate to smaller, leftish candidates. Lastly, Bill Clinton won that election based on his competence, frankness about the dire economic situation at the time(it's the economy stupid), and connection with voters, not because of Ross Perot. Segolene has shown herself as someone who struggles in all three areas. In the off chance that she does pull it off, it will not be because of Bayrou. In addition, she'd actually be in a worse situation if Baryou knocked out Sarkozy b/c every poll shows (which I think is probably right)that Bayrou would beat hear handily (he'd also do the same vs Sarko - it's simple math).