The undecideds (one in three) slowly come out and declare, with the frontrunners showing net gains in the latest poll.

BAROMÈTRE PRÉSIDENTIEL - VAGUE 19
[PRESIDENTIAL BAROMETER - WAVE 19]

April 15, 2007 (TNS-Sofres/Unilog) - 81% (+3) of the 1000 people interviewed in a recent French poll confirm their interest in the presidential election, compared to 19% (-3) who remain indifferent. In the first round of elections 30% (+2) of the people questioned intend to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy where as 26% (+2,5) will elect Ségolène Royal, 23% (+3) for François Bayrou. Moving towards the second round, 52% (-2) planned to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy and 48% (+2) for Ségolène Royal.

Then there is this cheering headline for the Royalists.

ROYAL ENJOYS BOOST IN THE POLLS AGAINST SARKOZY

PARIS April 17, 2007 (AFP) - Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal received a surprise boost against right-wing leader Nicolas Sarkozy as they emerged neck-and-neck in a survey Monday ahead of France's weekend vote.

Ségo has finally pulled ahead of Sarko, right? Ah, um, well [Pause.] no. [Slight pause.] Not exactly.

Royal, 53, and Sarkozy, 52, would each get 50 percent support if they make it through to the second round after finishing in the top two places in Sunday's first ballot, the poll said.

The survey -- conducted by CSA-Cisco for Le Parisien, Aujourd'hui en France and I Tele -- said Sarkozy was projected to get 27 percent of the vote in the first round, followed by Royal at 25 percent.

So the boost is in the second round (the poll shows no gain on Sarko in the 1er tour), if she finishes second or better in the first round. If we didn't have the utmost respect for the its journalistic integrity, we'd think AFP was trying to sway votes in Ségo's direction with a wishful headline.

But it's not all wishful headlines and theoretical downstream boosts for Ségo. Elsewhere panic is seeping into the fractious left's big Élysée dream.

FRENCH SOCIALISTS FEAR ROYAL WON'T MAKE IT INTO RUNOFF

PARIS April 16, 2007 (IHT) - Six days before the first round of voting in the French presidential election, senior members of the Socialist Party were worrying Monday that Ségolène Royal, once nicknamed "the queen of the polls," might not make it into the May 6 runoff. ... The prospect of a repeat of the first-round humiliation of Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate in the 2002 election, has brought a sense of panic.

... The concerns in the Socialist camp have aggravated tensions between those in the party pressing for an alliance with Bayrou as the only way to beat Sarkozy and those who say that even talking about such a deal could diminish Royal's chances of making it into the runoff.

... Socialists have sought to turn the election into a referendum on Sarkozy, who has been leading in the polls for more than three months. But this strategy may backfire if center-left voters consider Bayrou a stronger contender than Royal, analysts said.

... "There are a lot of doubts in the party and rightly so," said Bernard Kouchner, a former Socialist health minister, who on Sunday became the latest senior party figure to urge a pact with Bayrou after the first round. "I know it's politically incorrect to say so now, but if we want to win this election we need the votes from the center." ... "If she does not make it into the second round, the whole party will implode," he said. "If she wins, we have a chance of building Social Democracy in France for the first time."

IT'S ALL PANIC ON THE LEFTIST FRONT IN FRANCE
With Chance Of Right-Wingers On Last Ballot,
'Utility Voting' Becomes The Strategy Du Jour

PARIS April 17, 2007 (G&M) - As the election nears and a sense of last-minute panic sets in among voters and candidates, the French are reluctantly embracing strategic voting -- or "utility voting," as they call it.

... In other words, anything can happen this weekend, and the left has the most to lose.

The deals have so far been unsuccessful. On the weekend, Socialist Party middlemen tried to strike a deal with Mr. Bayrou to combine their parties into an alliance.

Ms. Royal rebuffed this effort yesterday, describing it as sexist and demeaning, as it implied that she had failed to campaign strongly enough. Her husband, Socialist Party chief François Hollande, told interviewers that he was not at all sure that his wife would make it into the second round, an apparent bid to frighten straying voters back into the Socialist fold.

... Bruno Dekens, a 26-year-old language student, said that he and his friends were so shocked and ashamed by the 2002 result, in which even far-left voters found themselves casting a ballot for Mr. Chirac to fend off Mr. Le Pen, that they will turn out in droves to vote "anybody but Sarkozy."

"We've all come to realize that we're going to have to become Americans, with only two big parties. If we vote for anyone else, we're really going to be supporting one of those two, and it might not be the right one. So we're going to have to treat it like a two-party system."

This was by no means a unanimous opinion, though, and some voters said that all the strategizing is making them even less interested in the mainstream parties.

"I'm going to vote for one of the revolutionary leftist parties because I think that France needs to wake up," said Jacques Aurillon, a 68-year-old social worker. "Will it put a right winger into the presidency? Maybe it will. In fact, I'd like to see that happen because France needs to see what a real conservative government feels like. Only then will they vote for the left."

Ah, M. Aurillon, you sly fox.

We think that what France needs to see is what a prosperous less-medicated happy working France feels like. We think the French would be pleasantly surprised by the difference.

PFFT (What is this?): 7-party panic 3½ | Rayonnement français 0