Blogging the French presidential elections
The French presidential elections will take place in the Spring of 2007: the first round will be on April 22, the second on May 6. This will be followed by parliamentary elections taking place again in two rounds, June 10 and 17. There will be plenty of candidates, left and right, but today we focus mainly on the two major candidates, from the Conservative and Socialist sides. That should not prevent us from talking about some others, but Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy are the two main “players” in this game. One should remember however that Royal has already been designated by the Socialist party as its main and only official candidate, where Sarkozy will have to wait until January 14 for such an official designation from his own party.
As an inauguration to this blog, here are some thoughts about the Royal and Sarkozy programmatic profiles…
Comparing Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy campaign speeches, they have at least three common features:
Sarkozy and Royal deliver the same message about bringing “hope” back to the country and its people. Royal uses the word “hope” all the time, Sarkozy uses the following formula: “allowing France to be a country where everything is possible again” ; both of them put a strong emphasis on the individuals versus groups/categories: Royal says “every individual should be able to choose his destiny and to manage in a context of world turbulences,” Sarkozy talks about the need to “respect every French taken individually.” One of the reasons why Royal beat her opponents within the socialist camp may be precisely that she developed an “unusual” political discourse about the need for individual well-being versus the classical, left/socialist-oriented approach toward socio-economic categories and “groups.” Both candidates also underline the need for “new ideas,” which should come from the “citizens” according to Royal and from “the French” according to Sarkozy. Now, both of them balance this approach by reaffirming the need for collective policies to make sure individual rights will be protected (come on, this is France after all…) ; both of them play on two simultaneous dimensions: the need for change, the need for reassurance. Sarkozy uses the term of “quiet rupture,” Royal balances the need for “new ideas,” new way of doing politics with the need for “order” and security.
Sarkozy and Royal will show differences in substance on many grounds, as we should see when the official campaign will start. Both of them will also have to pay some attention to their respective political party platforms, although it will be interesting to see how those two candidates will take some liberties with that to make sure they can win votes beyond their traditional constituencies.
Regarding the conservative camp: it may well happen that Sarkozy will be challenged in the so-called primaries in the conservative camp by the current Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. Her aim would be to get a decent percentage of the votes in the primaries (15/20%?), in order to negotiate something if Sarkozy is elected. At the same time, the level of animosity between Alliot-Marie and Sarkozy is so high that this part of the story should also be interesting…