And then there were three.*

Former PM Laurent Fabius, PS deputy for Seine-Maritime (4ème), thinks he's got the elephant mojo.

LAURENT FABIUS ANNOUNCES HIS CANDIDACY
FOR FRENCH SOCIALIST PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION

FLEURANCE October 1, 2006 (Boston Herald/AP) - [Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius], who trails in polls behind Socialist forerunner Segolene Royal, said in southern France on Sunday that he would seek his party’s nomination. He is the third Socialist to make his candidacy official.

"I have decided, if the party militants so wish, to be the presidential candidate [J’ai décidé, si les militantes et les militants socialistes le veulent, d’être candidat à la Présidence de la République.]," he told some 200 supporters in the city of Fleurance. "I took this decision because France is in need of a change, a change which can come only from the left."

"The task won’t be easy," Fabius said, adding he was confident of his chances at winning the nomination during the party’s November primary.

Fabius took a swipe at Royal, saying that polls do not always accurately reflect public opinion.

No, perhaps not, but polling only 6%** for the nomination, M. Fabius fondly dreams of an enormous margin of error, something like ±40%. As long as he's dreaming, why not dream ±110%. Of course he's confident about his chances! He might possibly have 116% of the vote. This is better polling than Messrs. Castro or Saddam.

Fabius lashed out against the governing conservative party’s likely presidential candidate, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, saying he opposed what he called the "brutal and precarious society that Mr. Sarkozy is preparing."

Fabius - who divided the party by leading a rebel campaign for a "no" vote in a referendum on a proposed European Union constitution last year - said the fight against "a society dominated exclusively by money" would be his main cause going into the 2007 presidential elections. He pledged, if elected, to raise retirement pensions and the minimum wage in an attempt to boost French consumers’ buying power.

Hhmmm, M. Fabius plans on waging a fight against "society dominated exclusively by money" then pledges big money giveaways. Infusions of money without accompanying gains in productivity produce inflation. True to his word, M. Fabius will diminish money and transform France into "a society dominated by want and need".

* First out of the box M. Kahn-Strauss, followed by Mlle. Royal.

** M. Fabius fares better in the TNS Sofres tracking poll, where he currently polls 22% as an important person in French politics, just shy of this year's high.

PFFT (What is this?): Bonne chance 2 | Rayonnement français 0