What’s new 4 months before the vote ?
According to some pollsters (and here, mainly TNS Sofres), the 2007 French presidential election offers the following new features:
- It is first time in 20 years that the presidential election won’t take place after a period of “cohabitation” (where the President and the Prime Minister/Parliament belong to different political camps). What that means is that candidates will have to be more outspoken, clear, and convincing about their political platforms.
- Royal and Sarkozy have never run before; the French tradition of voting for experienced (not to say old) candidates, who have already run and lost many times, may well be over. Related to this, public opinion expresses a strong and new appetite for a different style of leadership; they want the next President to be closer to them, to listen to society as much as to lead and guide it.
- External constraints such as globalization will play, for the first time, a crucial role in a presidential campaign. French public opinion is heavily pessimistic about the room to maneuver any president will have facing external and international constraints. Economy takes precedence over politics in the minds of a majority of French citizens. That being said, it is the first time in 20 years that public opinion shows such a strong interest for the election itself.
- All the “small” parties and candidates are facing the prospect of extremely low vote numbers, including the extreme right (according to one TNS Sofres poll, the National Front led by Jean-Marie Le Pen is “only” at 11.5% of intended voters right now, but this may well change). Extreme left forces did not (yet) capitalize on their past “success,” namely the “no” vote against the European constitutional treaty in 2005; this may also be subject to change..
Starting from there, issues and questions are :
- What happens if somebody other than Sarkozy from the conservative camp gets into the race (like the current Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie)? How would that play in terms of splitting the votes within the conservative family?
- What are the criteria on which the French will most likely base their votes? If they go for “authority,” “courage,” and “action,” Sarkozy stands in a better place; but if their need for “reassurance” proves to be stronger, then Royal comes first.
- What is the real audience of the extreme right? Striking to see that at the same time one poll tells us the National Front is getting “only” 11.5% of the intended votes as of today, another poll, made by the same institution, shows that 26% of the people who were asked said they agreed with Le Pen’s ideas…
- Last but not least, who is going to make the first big “mistake” in the race? Once the campaign is officially launched, mistakes done in and by each camp usually happen to play a greater role in public opinion perceptions than platforms and substance do…