As the Euro crisis rages on, Nicolas Sarkozy faces an uphill struggle for re-election. Current Affairs Editor Jerry Larkin asks - will Angela Merkel's support aid his campaign or prove to be a kiss of death?
After a year which saw both a general and presidential election take place in this part of the world, any Irish person could be forgiven for having election fatigue. However, with major elections happening in France in April and in the US in November, political hacks have much more drama to look forward to this year. The French election, in particular, promises to be a closely-run contest, given the fractured nature of French politics. Along with the two main parties – Sarkozy's UMP and the Parti Socialiste which will fight the election with François Hollande as their candidate – there is also the Parti communiste français (PCF), the Front National, the Green Party and the centrist Democratic Movement led by François Bayrou, along with many more smaller niche parties. The French political system is fairly unique in the way that the president is elected, with a first round taking place on 22nd of April. The top two candidates from that round will advance to the second round of voting which takes place two weeks later and is a straight face-off between the two candidates.
At the time of writing, Sarkozy still had not officially announced that he is running, although the feeling amongst the media in France is that he is paving the way for an imminent announcement by making prominent speeches and taking populist positions in the last couple of months. The French President had been sliding in the polls in the last year or so, with small successes like the overthrowing of Gadaffi in Libya doing little to prevent this decline. In having an approval rating of 32 percent, Sarkozy is the most unpopular French President since World War II. Indeed, his reputation is such that they were rumours circulating amongst the French twitterati that the recent birth of his fourth child with Carla Bruni was timed to roughly coincide with the election. Although he is currently 10 points behind Hollande in the opinion polls, he has the significant advantage of incumbency – the French have historically been reluctant to vote against a sitting President.
While Sarkozy's popularity has hit a nadir in the last year, Hollande's star has been on the rise. He had to fight a primary election within the Parti Socialiste (PS) last year, beating five other candidates, including the PS leader Martine Aubry and the 2007 PS candidate Ségolène Royal. The primary election certainly provided the French media with many column inches, given the fact that Royal and Hollande had been partners for over 30 years, before they separated in 2007. Despite this personal history, Royal and the other candidates have rowed in behind Hollande since his nomination. The seemingly serene state of the Socialists is in marked contrast to the turmoil of last summer, brought about by the arrest and subsequent trial of Dominque Strauss-Kahn (ubiquitously known in France as DSK). Many in France thought him to be the automatic challenger to Sarkozy and a certain winner of this election, although the rape trial saga ended that scenario comprehensively.
However, followers of the Socialists must be pleasantly surprised that the negative publicity surrounding DSK did not overly impact their presidential bid. Hollande has taken a decisive swing to the left since his nomination, and a victory for him would see a sea-change in the European consensus of austerity and punishing smaller states for supposed fiscal irresponsibility. Despite this, the last Socialist President Mitterand was forced to lurch to the right midway through his first term due to global economic pressures, and this may be a factor in an Hollande presidency.
Another important element of the upcoming French election is the performance in the opinion polls of Martine Le Pen for the Front National. She has performed extremely well, running currently in third place, with some speculating that she could make the second round if Sarkozy's campaign falters. That scenario would be a near-repeat of the election of 2002, where her father Jean-Marie defeated the Socialist candidate to proceed into the second round against Jacques Chirac. Such was the fury on behalf of the ordinary voter that Chirac won in a landslide. However it would be foolish to dismiss Le Pen, largely because of the French equivalent of the 'Shy Tory' effect, where voters are afraid to speak publicly of their support for an extreme candidate. Le Pen has built herself up as an anti-establishment option for French voters sick of the UMP and the PS orthodoxy, and this may appeal to many voters with unemployment at a 12 year high.
A final unpredictable element of this election is the pledge by Merkel to rally behind Sarkozy in his campaign. An alliance between French and German leaders is not without precedent – Chirac and Shroeder combined to condemn the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and in 1992 Helmet Kohl and Mitterand forced through the Maastricht Treaty. However this show of strength is different, and how this support will actually manifest itself is unclear. This step has already been criticised by Hollande and others in France as an unwelcome foray into another country's political process. There has also been apprehension shown in Germany for the support, with some Germans feeling that Merkel should be concentrating fully on the Euro crisis and not on an unrelated election. However, it is clear that - as the second most influential government in the EU - the upcoming election in France is intertwined with the outcome of the Euro crisis, and the eventual political direction which the EU will take in the future. Whether Merkel's public campaigning on behalf of Sarkozy will help or hinder his re-election prospects is not yet clear, but in this globalised political climate, the result of the 6th of May will have very real consequences for every citizen of the European Union.
The above article was published in the February edition of Motley magazine. Apologies for the delayed analysis!
