The French Presidential Race Tightens

The latest French poll shows that President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist challenger François Hollande are tied at 28% apiece for the first leg of the French presidential election coming in late April.
If the two candidates were pitted against each other in the second leg, the poll shows that Hollande would win if the election were held this week, with 54% of the vote, which is down from 56% two weeks ago.
The poll was taken after Sarkozy held his first large campaign rally and probably reflects this as much as anything else.
The extreme right Front National candidate, Marine Le Pen gained a point at 16%, and the centrist François Bayrou was stable at 13%.
The analysts for the CSA polling institute feel that the divisions in the left over policies concerning relief and bailouts for Eurozone countries, as well as the left's division over the question about whether to use protectionist policies to help France survive the current financial and economic crisis also played a role in lowering Hollande’s result, while having little impact on Sarkozy’s result.
It should b noted that 14% of those polled have not yet decided who they will vote for in the first leg and 17% have not made up their minds about who to vote for in the second leg.
So, with the French election six weeks’ away, the French are starting to form up behind their traditional parties - Gaullist and Socialist.
But, if anecdotes count for anything, I can tell you, dear readers, about a couple I met last weekend in Morzine while skiing.
They were Parisien, mid-fifties, and neither rich nor poor, although it was their first time to visit a ski resort, being there to let their grandson try out skiing during his winter school holiday.
They are solidly behind Sarkozy, expressing the view that he is doing the best anyone could possibly do in the present circumstances. They feel he will be re-elected easily. They do not like Hollande and do not believe anything the Socialists say about how to “fix” France’s economic problems. They do not like the Euro or the European Union and believe the Euro will crash and disappear in the next five years, while the EU will become more moderate and retreat to the 12 original countries that composed it.
I haven’t run into any Socialists to test their reactions, which would be opposite, in any case. But, the conversation renewed my feeling that the French are still firmly in the Gaullist mode. They do not trust the left and they do not blame Gaullist governments for France’s problems, but rather the left when it managed to intervene in the Mitterrand era.
The French presidential race will be close, I suppose, given the serious problems facing Europe and France today. But, if I had to make my choice now, I would say that President Sarkozy will be re-elected.