Sarko drunk or sick?

Can someone explain this? Seems like he met Jeltsin... Was Sarko just ”sick”?

Royal’s defeat

Just a quick one on Royal’s defeat as well. Here are some obvious reasons why she lost:

1. A normal election in France ends with right winning, just like the social democrats have the natural majority in the Scandinavian countries. Remember, we have only had one socialist President in the Fifth Republic; Mitterrand.

2. Sarkozy did a great job of positioning himself as the candidate if you wanted change, even though he was part of the sitting government earlier this year.

3. Royal’s economic platform was portrayed as too weak and unrealistic; Sarkozy seemed to be the guy who could take care of France’s economic problems.

Moreover, one can discuss if Royal got the backing she deserved in her own party, the fact that she was the first female candidate to become President, the extent to which Sarkozy flirted openly with Le Pen’s voters and used a disgusting populist, anti-immigration rhetoric, etc etc.

However, Sarkozy’s victory also scares me in more than one way:

1. Sarkozy doesn’t think that Turkey belongs in Europe and has promised a referendum on Turkish EU-membership. I would like to see Turkey in the EU, when the Copenhagen criteria are met etc etc, but on this road a major stumbling block just crashed down.

2. Sarkozy doesn’t support the original European Constitution; he prefers a mini-draft, in which a lot of the social and political gains made in the original draft will be dropped. So, by first rejecting the original Constitution and then losing the presidential election, the French left really owes the European left a huge excuse. Why, comrades?

3. Sarkozy’s populist, anti-immigration rhetoric may move the European political climate to the right on issues relating to citizens rights, integration, immigration, migration etc.

4. One of EU:s most important countries, the great country of France, with a unique veto in the UN Security Council, will now continue to be in the hands of the right. Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France, Cameron beats Brown in Britain and then the Prodi’s government falls into pieces… That is not a nice scenario for the European left.

5. I have just never trusted the French right.

However, two things might be good.

1. The French Socialist Party might finally have its Bad Godesberg moment and shape up its economic outlook on the world and become a normal, European social democratic party when it comes to economic policy.

2. Sarkozy might implement a few needed economic reforms, which in the end will benefit working people and people desperately looking for jobs.

OK, that’s my take on it, time to hit the streets of Washington DC again.

10 basic things about tonight

1. There are 3.3 million more registered voters than 2002.

2. As you can read below, turn out is really high, which in theory normally benefits the left (more working-class people and immigrants are probably voting, and they tend to vote more to the left than the average).

3. For Royal, ending up in the second round is crucial; otherwise the Parti Socialiste might explode. She/the PS will be happy if she ends very to close to Sarkozy, who is expected to come in first. If she ends up first, her campaign will get an enormous boost. The number she is probably dreaming about beating is 25.8 percent. That is what Mitterrand got in 1981.

4. For Sarkozy, he must come in first. Anything else would be a major surprise since he has been leading in more or less all of the 100 latest polls. But then we have the high turnout… Sarkozy is probably hoping to get more than 27 percent, and he must beat what Chirac got in the first round in 1995: 20.8 percent.

5. Le Pen is off course dreaming about making it to the second round again; he will 84 years next time. His numbers are always difficult to predict, but he got 4 804 772 votes (16,9 percent) in 2002.

6. Bayrou is off course hoping that his previous momentum and talk about being both right, left and center will put him in the second round. His party, UDF, are confident that Bayrou will increase their share of the vote compared to 2002, when they got 6,8 percent.

7. Another fun thing to keep your eyes on is who will win among the “gauche de la gauche”. There are two Trotskyite candidates and one from the communist party. I think Olivier Besancenot (Trotskyite from LCR) will end up first of the three.

8. The second round is on Sunday, 6 May – unless someone will get 50,1 percent tonight…

9. And Chirac? His mandate expires on 16 May 2007 at midnight.

10. Don’t forget that this blog will probably be helpful tonight.

I don’t know when I will get online again, but more reports and photos will follow!

France votes - in large numbers

I spent the morning just outside Paris, in St Denis, were we visited a local polling station. Alreday before noon, more than one third of registered voters had voted there. We knew that the amount of registered voters is 3.3 million higher than 2002 (according to Le Monde today), and now all of France seems to be voting in large numbers. At noon, voter turnout in all of France was 31.2 percent, and this should be compared to the same number at noon in 2002: Only 21.4 percent. That is great news.

Normally, a high turnout (and nice weather) benefits the left in most parts of the world, and in France, high turnout is normally bad for Le Pen. We have projected the election result in the group visiting Paris and my projection is as follws:

Royal: 25,9 percent
Sarkozy: 25,8 percent
Le Pen: 19 percent
Bayrou: 14,4 percent.

Obviously, I put Royal first since I am such an optimist in life in general, and you need to be brave in order to do well in projections like this. Anyway, we will have a solid exit poll at 8 PM, and the rumour is that there will be various projections on the Internet at 7 PM.

Right now, I am sitting at the café Le Fumoir (outdoors) and my food just arrived. Life could be worse.

Nothing left of Sarkozy, but Royal looks good!

At least on the official campaign posters on Rue Payenne in Paris...

Bonjour Paris

As y'all can guess, Paris is great: The sun is up, the sky is blue and there is a major election tomorrow.

The program here is arranged by the progressive center-left think-tank etc “Arenagruppen” and we are 25 Swedes traveling together. Yesterday we had a great program and met with the following people: Eric Aeschimann (journalist at Libération, the newspaper founded by Sartre); Thierry Dedieu from the trade union Cfdt (Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail, a Christian, progressive trade union); Élisabeth Guigou (legend in the Socialist Party, Wikipedia here).

Some reflections after these talks:
The election: Even if the polls still say Sarko/Ségo to the second round, things are still up in the air. We have four rather strong candidates, and Eric Aeschimann provoked us by saying that Royal and Le Pen will end up in the second round. Needless to say, he was pushing his point the way only a French journalist can do, but he seriously meant that both Sarkozy and Bayrou are grossly overestimated in the polls. Four new polls yesterday; check’em out here.

The Parti Socialiste: All three speakers agreed that Royal’s campaign “Desirs d’avenir” has been an interesting novelty, but the verdict is still out whether this will lead to a stronger socialist party (and a more organized, bottom-up, less white male left in France). If Royal wins, her idea to create a broad platform with a lot of interaction parallel to the PS will be one of the reasons explaining her victory.

The candidates: This election is very much about candidates and their character, and not about parties. It is clear that there is a large “anti-Sarkozy” vote out there; people want change, and Élisabeth Guigou explained that there was always an anti-Sarkozy sentiment at all the election rallies she has been to. All speakers agreed that France has gotten used to a very rough, right-wing political climate, where people like Sarlozy and the real Sarkozy, Le Pen, can get so many votes. The big task for the left is to turn this disappointment into a positive vote for the future (i.e. Royal must really show how she will improve France, and cannot only rely on people being scared of Sarkozy). Hopefully, all the new registered voters in the suburbs should help the left, but some of these votes will go to Le Pen as well.

I am off to more seminars now, more later.

[Photo of me and Élisabeth Guigou by Fredrik Sjöberg]

The Economist backs Sarkozy

Maybe it is not a total surprise; the British journal The Economist supported George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000 (but never Silvio Berlusconi). Now they endorse another man of the right; UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.

To their credit, The Economist has two basic doubts:

As he showed in his brief stint as finance minister, he has most of the traditional French politician's meddlesome economic instincts, favouring a strong industrial policy, protected national champions and even interfering in supermarket prices. Recently he has taken to heaping blame on the European Central Bank for France's self-inflicted failings.

AND:

The biggest defect in Mr Sarkozy's foreign policy: his fierce hostility to letting Turkey join the EU.

But after all, according to The Economist:

On the evidence of his career and his campaign, Mr Sarkozy is less a principled liberal than a brutal pragmatist. Yet he is the only candidate brave enough to advocate the “rupture” with its past that France needs after so many gloomy years. It has been said that France advances by revolution from time to time but seldom, if ever, manages to reform. Mr Sarkozy offers at least a chance of proving this aphorism wrong.

Needless to say, I support Ségolène Royal, and the question is whether this endorsement is even positive in the eyes of a French voter. Moreover, Sarkozy now says he wants to cure France with methods from England, and I doubt if that is a vote vinner.

Anyway, it is somewhat sad when the biggest hope for Royal seems to be Chirac’s legacy and Sarkozy’s talk of reform.