According to a BVA poll commissioned by Le Parisien, there is still a potential margin for improvement in voting intentions for the MoDem candidate, less than 90 days before the first round. So much so that the PS, the UMP and even the FN are getting worried.
Article Source: “Bayrou, candidat sous surveillance”, Olivier Beaumont and Éric Hacquemand, Le Parisien (25/01/2012)
Since entering the presidential race in early December, François Bayrou has been a candidate under close scrutiny. On both the Right and the Left, analysts have been dissecting his speeches and stalking his rallies – yesterday, former minister Rama Yade described his “position of independence” as “interesting” – but above all voting intentions are being scrutinised.
More than his current scores, however, it’s his potential margin for improvement that is causing the most concern. The BVA poll published today by Le Parisien will not reassure the MoDem leader’s rivals: currently, 36% of French voters are “certainly” or “probably” considering voting for him in May.* The only notable consolation for his opponents is that this potential is lower than it was at the same period back in 2007. However, he is now eating away at all of their support bases: that of François Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and even more significantly that of Marine Le Pen.
At the PS: no more helping hands and tolerance
It is out of the question for the socialists to let the MoDem leader take on the guise of a “credible alternative”. Having made eyes at Bayrou last November, Hollande is now urging his staff to take a harder line with the centrist candidate. Yesterday, it was the turn of Jean-Marc Ayrault, the leader of the PS députés, to lash out. Unemployment is Bayrou’s enemy? “But he never mentions it at the National Assembly,” Ayrault pointed out. Another line of attack: “the confusion” sown by the candidate from Béarn. “He is extraordinarily vague,” claims Pierre Moscovici, Hollande’s campaign manager, particularly concerning his allies. To put it plainly, at a time of crisis when the country needs a clear and stable majority in government, Ayrault denounces him as “the prince of ambiguity.”
Irritation in the Front National
There is irritation in the ranks of the FN at a centrist setting himself up as the people’s candidate against the PS and the UMP. “Bayrou copies Le Pen, but actually everybody copies Le Pen, more or less successfully... to be honest,” said the FN candidate on Friday, the day after the meeting organised by the MoDem leader in Dunkirk. That day he’d been speaking on behalf of “ordinary people, humble folk, the nobodies.” Which recalls the words of Jean-Marie Le Pen on the eve of the first round of the 2002 presidential election: “Don’t be afraid to dream... you, the ordinary people, the nobodies, the excluded...” To counter his claims, the FN leader now insists that Bayrou holds a “great responsibility” for France’s current state, as a “three-time minister.” And she points out his contradictions: “he says he wants to defend the label ‘made in France’ when he has always supported the Europe of Brussels.”
The UMP still treading carefully
“It is difficult to take on Bayrou too directly, as we’re hoping to pick up his voters in the second round,” says a UMP source, who suggests that “Nicolas Sarkozy will need his votes if he wants to win.” The upshot is that even the “party snipers” avoid having a dig at him, going so far as to limit their carping communiqués, unlike at the PS and the FN. And, when Philippe Douste-Blazy, co-founder of the UMP, issues a call to vote for François Bayrou, even Jean-François Copé, the UMP secretary-general, carefully measures his response: “It is neither an event nor a non-event.”
* This probably means he receives 36% of voting intentions for the second round of the election, were he to qualify. The first round ballot will be held on April 22nd; the second round on May 6th. It is unclear whether the journalists are being deliberately ambiguous or simply unintentionally imprecise with this reference to voting intentions “in May”. In any case, the article (and perhaps the poll itself) tends to confuse voting intentions for the first and second rounds and thereby potentially exaggerates Bayrou’s chances on April 22nd. (Editor’s note).
Translation: Mélanie Benaiteau, Agnès Brihaye and Aurélie Gontier
Editing: Sam Trainor