‘Third man’ may be kingmaker in French polls

Francois Bayrou stands no more chance than before in his third try for the French presidency, but this time the center-candidate may win a bigger role as kingmaker. As the polls stand, Socialist Francois Hollande is favorite to oust conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, but backing from Bayrou in a May 6 second-round runoff could swing the outcome. The leader of the Democratic Movement and education minister under Jacques Chirac became known as the “third man” in the 2007 election, when he finished a strong third in the first round. So far Bayrou has not risen above fourth place and could yet be relegated to fifth. This time around, analysts say, the former history teacher and biographer of popular King Henry IV could make his mark by influencing the final outcome. Bayrou, 60, will be hard pressed to win more than 14 percent of the vote in the first round of the two-part contest on April 22, putting him fourth, pollsters say. Latest surveys show him slipping back to 11-12 percent and suggest his support is softer than that of the other main candidates. If he fails to reach the May 6 runoff, he has said he will endorse one of the two finalists. That could mean a lifeline for Sarkozy, whose personal unpopularity is a campaign handicap, or all-but-certain victory to Hollande. Mariette Sineau, a political scientist at the CEVIPOF research institute, said voter momentum for Bayrou in January showed “this was going to be a man who will matter a lot. Everything is possible with him because he’s never very clear.” After Bayrou came in third in 2007 with 18.57 percent on the first ballot, his supporters divided evenly, half voting for Sarkozy and half for Socialist Segolene Royal. Hollande now scores around 30 percent in polls for the first round, with Sarkozy at 25 percent and Le Pen at 17.5 percent. Leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon is creeping up at 9 percent. Bayrou, the avuncular son of farmers and father of six, is well liked. In a recent Ipsos survey he was named France’s most popular politician, scoring 55 percent of favorable opinions, ahead of Hollande, who garnered 52 percent. He is credited with foresight in the eurozone debt crisis, having warned of soaring budget deficits in his 2007 campaign. Besides alleviating the debt burden, he campaigns on improving education and supporting French industry. Yet Bayrou – who decries the left-right polarization and what he calls the “Sarkohollandization” of the 2012 election – has struggled to find enough support for his platform, which some see as lacking a sharp profile. “People from the left like him well enough and people on the right like him pretty well too but it’s hard to transform that into votes,” said Gael Sliman, director of pollster BVA. A sharp left-right divide that has existed ever since the 1789 French Revolution has left little room for a strong center. Under the Fifth Republic, founded in 1958, centrists have often been fragmented into splinter groups caught between the statist Gaullist tradition and the pro-worker Left. “This is a country where we’re used to being right or left. When someone says ‘I’m neither going to be right nor left, I’ll be the center,’ it’s hard to make that space work,” Sliman said. The last time centrists enjoyed power was in the late 1970s under President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who founded the Union for French Democracy umbrella party uniting Christian Democrats, secularist Radicals and free-market liberal Republicans. Bayrou was the rump UDF’s last leader, but it split in 2007 and he founded the Democratic Movement. Sarkozy encouraged the creation of a rival New Center, with whom the president’s UMP party was allied in parliament after his 2007 victory. Herve Morin, a former Bayrou aide, became leader of the New Center and was tapped as Sarkozy’s first defense minister. Morin withdrew from the presidential race last week and said he would support Sarkozy. Another popular centrist, former Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, decided in October not to run for president – leaving Bayrou as the last centrist standing in the field. Bayrou has increased his anti-Sarkozy rhetoric in recent weeks as the president has tacked to the right to forestall a looming threat from the National Front’s Marine Le Pen. Sarkozy’s calls to tighten access to unemployment benefits and crack down on illegal immigration opened “an election campaign that is divisive for the French people,” he said. Earlier this month, Bayrou rejected the suggestion of an alliance from Finance Minister Francois Baroin, who reminded the centrist that he had once governed with conservatives under Chirac. He also scoffed at a statement by Interior Minister Claude Gueant that Bayrou “belongs to our family.” Still, some political experts believe the staunch Catholic would not rule out an alliance with the president. “If Bayrou thinks that with his support Sarkozy can win, he will support him, but it will cost him very dearly,” said a political scientist who declined to be identified because he sometimes advises the president’s UMP party. If Sarkozy appears doomed, “he won’t take that risk, which doesn’t necessarily mean he will support Hollande,” he said. He did not say what Bayrou could expect in return for backing the president. Judging from past French practice, that could range from a senior ministry, parliamentary seats for his party or even the premiership for crucial support, to as little as paying off the campaign debts of a minor candidate. Hollande has said that if elected, he does not foresee bringing Bayrou into government. But Bayrou cannot go too far in attacking the Socialist, given his own followers’ preferences. Sixty percent of Bayrou’s supporters could vote for Hollande in the runoff versus 40 percent for Sarkozy, said BVA’s Sliman. But Bayrou’s voters are volatile, said analyst Sineau, and many could abstain in the runoff, complicating matters further for the two front-runners, and Bayrou himself if he endorses a candidate his supporters don’t like. “He’s in a very uncomfortable position,” she said.