The excitement subsides as France wakes up to her only viable choices for president.

BAROMÈTRE PRÉSIDENTIEL - VAGUE 17

30 mars 2007 (TNS-Sofres/Unilog) - 81% (=) : telle est la part des personnes interrogées qui déclarent s'intéresser à l'élection présidentielle, contre 19% (=). Au 1er tour de l'élection présidentielle, N. Sarkozy recueille 30% des intentions de vote (+2), S. Royal 27% (+0,5) et F. Bayrou 18% (-3,5), 15% (-4) n'ont pas exprimé d'intentions de vote. Au second tour, Nicolas Sarkozy recueille 52% (=) et Ségolène Royal 48% (=).

[PRESIDENTIAL BAROMETER - WAVE 17

Eighty-one percent (=, unchanged) of the 1,000 people interviewed in a recent French poll confirm their interest in the presidential election, compared to 19% (=) who remain indifferent. In the first round of elections 30% (+2) of the people questioned intend to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy whereas 27% (+0.5) will vote for Ségolène Royal, and 18% (-3.5) for François Bayrou. Moving into the second round, 52% (=) planned to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy and 48% (=) for Ségolène Royal.]

M. Bayrou's 5 points of sudden gain and fame in the polls have evaporated. Unless some outsized gaffe or scandal penetrates the public consciousness, do not expect him to surge again. The "wide open" race of March today has the dull look of February.

City Journal Paris correspondent Nidra Poller files this dispatch assessing the front-runners:

WHITHER FRANCE?

March 30, 2007 (City Journal) - Ségolène Royal’s campaign is a flop. She is an embarrassment to the Socialist Party machine, a disappointment to the rank and file, a heartbreak for the left-wing media that would have loved to love her. Royal is a caricature of la femme française: charming, attractive, self-centered, narcissistic, manipulative, and capricious. Incapable of giving a straight answer to a simple question, she takes off like a wind-up doll and recites endless platitudes. Though her rudderless platform wobbles precariously on the high seas of the presidential race, one gets the impression that if she is elected, all professions—from CEOs to academics to policemen—will serve as social workers, catering to the suffering masses from the cradle to the grave.

Disappointment in Royal largely explains the unlikely popularity of François Bayrou, a lonesome cowboy. He avoids going into detail about his program because it would undercut his basic argument: “French voters are tired of this sterile conflict between the right and the left.” Any significant measure he might propose would bear traces of rightness and leftness; any politician who might stand by his side would necessarily come from the right or the left; and the majority that, he promises, will magically materialize to govern with him after the June legislative election would have to come from the right and the left. Precedents for the nonpartisan government that he’s marketing include the ungovernable Fourth Republic in pre-war France and the fragile coalition headed by Romano Prodi in today’s Italy. As Bayrou’s polls rose, the media flocked to him, mechanically increasing his popularity. He will most likely see-saw with Royal in the coming weeks, as anti-Sarkozy voters try to figure out which of them might beat the only candidate with presidential stature and an intelligently elaborated program.

... Though Sarkozy, under pressure from his party, has watered down his positions on specific issues, he makes no secret of his intention to make a clean break with Chirac’s system of conducting foreign relations as an extension of his personal social agenda. True to his promise to inform citizens and parliamentarians on the issues and invite them to participate in the debate, Sarkozy held a press conference on foreign relations. The media attended, but barely bothered to tell the public about it. And they didn’t even mention the richly informative day-long conference on defense that one of Sarkozy’s close advisors, Pierre Lellouche, organized for the UMP. Highly qualified speakers identified the clear and present danger from without and within, the interaction between global jihad and banlieue uprisings, the imminence of an Iranian nuclear threat, the rise of al Qaeda, the painful inadequacies of European defense—subjects that the French media apparently preferred to downplay.

... Opinion-makers, and most of the presidential candidates, delicately repositioned this offensive [scil., the 2005 banlieue riots and the ongoing "intifada" by mysterious French youths (and here and here and here and here, et al.)] against French society into a cry for social justice demanding appropriate corrective measures. In fact, France is not an equal opportunity society—not for its own citizens, not for immigrants. It will require extraordinary leadership to transform this society of little princes with their courts and privileges into a modern society of merit and professionalism. Arabs, Muslims, and blacks, whether recent immigrants or fourth-generation French, do suffer from discrimination. But other factors are involved: a significant portion of that population is ill-equipped to study and work in an advanced technological society, and France does suffer from the ills and perils of Eurabia, including a domestic al-Qaeda network.

Worth the full read.

PFFT (What is this?): Bayrou who? 3 | 1er tour formality 4 | Rayonnement français 0