12 jours avant le 2e tour

"Bayrou who?" suddenly is « Bayrou tout ! »

ROYAL, SARKOZY PIN PRESIDENTIAL HOPES
ON DEFEATED FRENCH CENTRIST

PARIS April 25, 2007 (AFP) - French presidential rivals Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, trained their sights Wednesday on a defeated centrist candidate whose seven million voters hold the key to next week's run-off ballot. ... Both have offered talks on a political pact and dangled the possibility of cabinet posts for members of Bayrou's Union for French Democracy (UDF) party.

'KINGMAKER' BAYROU TO REVEAL PLANS
PARIS April 25, 2007 6:45A EDT (CNN/AP)

BAYROU REFUSES TO BACK CANDIDATES
PARIS April 25, 2007 1:46P EDT (CNN/AP)

Unless you are Sarko or Ségo or a member of the French press, M. Bayrou's non-endorsement is no surprise. M. Bayrou instead has opted to celebrate the improvement in his latest loss by forming a new political party. He is still a small-base politician, but with a bigger small base and a brand new party.

At today's press conference he unwrapped the cellophane.

FRANÇOIS BAYROU ANNONCE LA CRÉATION
DU PARTI DÉMOCRATE

25 avril 2007 (bayrou.fr) - François Bayrou n’a pas donné de consigne de vote pour le deuxième tour lors d’une conférence de presse. Il considère que "Nicolas Sarkozy va aggraver les problèmes de la démocratie et la fracture du tissu social". Il estime également que "Ségolène Royal va aggraver durablement les problèmes de l’économie et l’un comme l’autre vont déséquilibrer le déficit et la dette". François Bayrou a annoncé la création du Parti démocrate "pour changer définitivement la politique française" : Les Français "trouveront pour les représenter une force de contre-pouvoir, libre, capable de dire oui si l’action va dans le bon sens et non si elle va dans le mauvais sens. Capable, autrement dit, de faire sortir la politique des réflexes du toujours pour et du toujours contre, pour défendre l’intérêt général".

[François Bayrou did not give instruction on the second round vote at today's press conference. He considers that "Nicolas Sarkozy will worsen the problems of the democracy and the fracture of social fabric". He also estimates that "Ségolène Royal will worsen the problems of the economy permanently and the one as much as the other will unbalance the deficit and the debt". François Bayrou announced the creation of the Parti démocrate "to change French policy definitively": The French "will find a counter-force to represent them, free, able to say yes if the action makes sense and no if it doesn't. Able, in other words, to break free of the political reflexes of always for and of always against, to defend the general interest".

But there is no real Parti démocrate. There is only M. Bayrou. And without him, there is no Parti démocrate. He has formalized a political cult.

The problem with centrist parties is that their dynamic is centrifugal. They spread and push and dissipate toward their edges, that is, toward the left and toward the right. Eventually this rends them into two or more quarrelsome cadres who redefine the center a bit more to the left or a bit more to the right, which sets in motion another round of moving the center about.

Left/right parties perdure because they tend to govern toward the center. Governing is not a question of where each respective locus is, it is a question of how far from that locus particular policy extends toward the center.

M. Bayrou now runs two political parties. Perhaps his strategy is to be represented on the 2012 presidential ballot by a multitude of parties, to give the voter the option of voting for him as a right-wing, right-of-center, centrist, or left-of-center candidate. Surely something in all that will please.

PFFT (What is this?): Bayrou tout 2 | Rayonnement français 0