How we dread the upcoming French presidential campaigns.

With France in the crapper, here's the sort of thing the press thinks we ought to know about the all-but-declared front-runner "présidentiables."

SARKOZY'S TALE OF LOVE AND POLITICS IS BESTSELLER

July 23, 2006 (Telegraph) - Mr Sarkozy's Témoignage (Testimony), in which he recounts his public break-up and then reconciliation with his wife, Cécilia, and insists on his powerful love for her, appears to have been just the fillip his political campaign needed. The polls now put "Sarko" three points ahead of 'Ségo' - his likely Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, a glamorous mother of four.

The boost to the minister's popularity was revealed in a poll by Sofres, conducted after a round of television appearances by Mr Sarkozy, 51, to promote the book.

Not to be outdone, Miss Royal, 52, is to publish her own political manifesto, Désirs d'avenir (Dreams of the Future) )* in September, two months before the Socialist Party elects its presidential candidate. ... Bernard Kouchner, another Socialist candidate who has known the pair for more than 20 years, said of her book: "It will be an intriguing story of love, politics and rivalry. It reads like a novel."

IN FRANCE, AN INTRIGUING A STORY OF
LOVE, POLITICS AND RIVALRY

PARIS July 20, 2006 (IHT) - When Ségolène Royal [52], the Socialist Party's front-runner in opinion polls, and her companion, François Hollande [51], the party leader, head to the Côte d'Azur on vacation next week, they will not just sunbathe and play badminton with their four children. They will also consider the pressing matter of who will run for president of France next spring - she or he?

Both Royal and Hollande, their friends say, have been dreaming for two years of succeeding President Jacques Chirac at the Élysée Palace.

Perhaps they should put in a little more pillow time. Jack's been president since 1995.

"It is an intriguing story of love, politics and rivalry," said Bernard Kouchner, a fellow Socialist and veteran politician who has known the couple for more than two decades. "It reads like a novel."

Apparently this is M. Kouchner's all-purpose comment, vid. supra.

With about 10 months to go to the election, Royal boasts a 62 percent popularity rating, compared with Hollande's 41 percent, according to the latest poll by the Ipsos institute. The survey was based on telephone interviews of 944 people on July 7 and 8. Royal leads not just Hollande but also all the other would-be candidates in their camp. But opinion surveys have proved unreliable in past French presidential campaigns. As party chief, Hollande has considerable clout among the Socialist rank and file who will designate the party's official candidate in November.

The couple has intrigued a nation that only recently discovered a taste for politicians' private lives. Unmarried but together for almost 26 years in a generation where divorce is common, they represent at once family values and modernity.

Or as some might see it a lack of essential commitment and the worst of modernity.

The parallel nature of their careers and ambitions makes this Socialist double act unlike any other power couple. This is no French version of the Clintons. [Well, that's a plus.] ...Royal and Hollande will not run against each other when about 200,000 card-holding Socialists vote on a candidate in the November primaries. They will decide privately in coming weeks who is better placed to win, said Bruno Le Roux, a member of the Socialist leadership who has worked closely with Hollande for six years.

"The competition exists: Both are potential candidates and both are ready to go all the way," Le Roux said. "But they have a pact. They will not ask the party to choose between them."

The separate teams of advisers surrounding Royal and Hollande are deeply suspicious of each other, said Carl Meeus, co-author of a new book on the couple whose title loosely translates as "The Madonna and the Comeback Man" [La madone et le culbuto]

For Hollande, the situation has become a tricky balancing act, at least according to appearances. Despite his highly public efforts to rein in his companion, he has been accused by other potential candidates of indulging her.

"She breaks all the rules," complained Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a Socialist senator and an ally of former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, another would-be candidate. "She started campaigning when the agreement was to wait. She started making policy statements when we were still working on our program. ... If she wasn't the partner of the party leader, she would never have gotten away with all that."

Beyond the party politics, this is also a tale of personal ambition and sacrifice in a modern relationship. Hollande has had to grapple with the meteoric rise of his partner toward a post he covets himself, a rise that no one was predicting a year ago.

Last year, for the first time the couple spent the Christmas holidays apart, party officials said, and the press reported that they were having fights in the library of the National Assembly. But according to the gossip columns, they have patched things up. Rumors about them living in separate apartments have given way to rumors about them getting married this summer.

In the Socialist Party's Left Bank headquarters, a photograph of Royal winning the presidency of the Poitou-Charentes region in western France adorns Hollande's desk. [Does it really adorn the desk or does it simply sit there? This and such like are the important questions before the nation.]

"If he was never a minister it was probably because she was, and if she has never had that much space in the party it was probably because he was head of the party," [Socialist MP Jean-Louis Bianco] said.

This time it could be the ultimate professional sacrifice.

If she is elected president next year, what would he do? He has already announced that he will give up the party leadership next year. Some party officials suggested that he could take up an international post. Others said they envisioned him as the éminence grise behind a President Royal. What is less likely is that he would be rewarded with the second-most prestigious post in the country.

As Le Roux put it: "It is hard to imagine the prime minister going home to the president every night."

In all the personal and ultimate sacrificing did anyone notice where they put the kids?

* Désirs d'avenir is a sort of online book-in-the-making, which can be found here. Ségo outlines some vague policy, opens a thread for comments, "synthesizes" anything she likes, and voilà, responsive, sensitive policy.

Ce site est un forum participatif.

Ce site héberge des débats : tout le monde (à condition de respecter certaines règles élémentaires de savoir vivre – voir charte des forums) est invité à y participer. Les thèmes des débats d'actualité seront renouvelés à intervalles de temps réguliers. Une synthèse sera faite de chacun de ces débats et les idées retenues par Ségolène Royal sont alors publiées sur le site. Par ailleurs, vous avez également la possibilité de déposer une contribution en cliquant sur un des six débats permanents du forum.

Or she publishes a policy in outline, seeds the thread with the details, and presents the complete policy as fanciful consensus, but that is rather cynical.

PFFT (What is this?): It's all laaaaaaa-ove 3¾ | Rayonnement français 0