4 jours avant le 1er tour

FURTHER LURCH TO THE RIGHT IN FRENCH ELECTION CAMPAIGN
PARIS April 18, 2007 (WSWS)

France has an abundance of left candidates (seven, with no less than four avowed Communist on offer for president) but a paucity of left voters.

FRENCH LEFT AT ALL TIME LOW: IS ELECTORATE SHIFTING TO RIGHT?

PARIS, April 18, 2007 (AFP) - Four days ahead of the first round of presidential elections, France's political left is facing an awkward realisation: not since nearly 40 years ago has its combined vote been so low in the opinion polls.

While the socialist Segolene Royal can count on around 25 percent of votes on April 22, support for six minor candidates adds up to just ten percent -- an overall of no more than 35 percent for personalities campaigning on the ideas of the left.

... "Either the public has decided the left's answers to these issues [scil., unemployment, income levels and education] are not credible, or the estimations are wrong," [said Jean-Philippe Roy, politics professor at Tours university in central France].

... "The shift to the right was already visible in the 2002 election, when law-and-order came to dominate the campaign," said Dominique Reynie, a professor at the Paris School of Political Sciences. ... "People think there should be less dependence on the state -- that they should take back control of their lives. In France that's a right-wing idea -- elsewhere it's just common sense."

The left fights for the little guy, the working stiff. But little guys and working stiffs are in short supply in France. So the left is trying to expand its franchise from its soft bobo center to include [Gasp.] the middle class, France's biggest constituency and the piggy bank that funds the French socialist candy store.

The left's specialty has always been distributing candy. And where everyone has a nice piece of candy, the left promises two. To ensure everyone has two nice pieces of candy, the left declares nobody shall have three. Our guess is the greatest number of French with three nice pieces of candy belong to the middle class. This rather dims the bright appeal of the left for many in the French middle class.

FIGHT FOR SOUL OF FEATHERBEDDED FRANCE

April 18, 2007 (Times Online) - Ségo, as she is known in France, mouths warm leftist slogans so platitudinous that she enrages even her Socialist Party colleagues for her lack of intellectual coherence, but she mines a deep seam.

... Dig beneath the speeches and blogs and the contest is more interesting than soap-box gladiators; it is a struggle for the soul of France’s middle class.

... To put it bluntly, it is about who the French State supports. In his book, Testimony, Mr Sarkozy thumps the tub for the middle class, who should be “at the heart of all policy”.

The middle class are “always rich enough to pay taxes, never poor enough to receive help”, says Sarko. They have lost confidence in getting a good job and in owning their own home.

... The difference [with Britain] is that French socialism was built to protect France’s middle class and not to rescue its poor. The economic interventionism, the nationalised industries, the lifetime employment laws are the bulwarks of the pleasant society that was enjoyed by a generation of France’s middle class since the War and which is still on view today. Unfortunately, the cost of it has nearly bankrupted the country, sent intellectual and financial capital fleeing to Britain and America, leaving behind a class of disaffected and dejected boys and girls clutching useless diplomas.

... When Ségo defends the 35-hour week, condemns the precariousness of globalisation and promises a “right to work” for the young, she is not speaking to immigrant kids in suburbs — they will never get jobs inside the walls of the French socialist fortress. She is speaking to the frustrated, fearful, middle-class graduates.

To whom will the French middle class listen?

Truth be told, the middle class does not aspire to level off with the neighbors, it seeks to surpass them.

PFFT (What is this?): Right turn 3 | Left turn 1 | Rayonnement français ½