Not to distract my mainly-American audience from our upcoming election – I know it’s only one year and seven months away – but the French presidential election is in 10 days. Despite not having lived in France in over ten years, Mr. Pinault is gearing up to cast his vote, though like a surprising number of French, he can’t decide which of the four leading candidates is most palatable.
There’s front-runner conservative Nicolas Sarkozy; glamorous gaffe-prone Socialist Segolene Royal; the ‘third man’ Francois Bayrou; and Jean-Marie Le Pen, an elderly far-right racist. It’s like staring at a cheese platter stacked with oily, processed, rancid cheese, and whichever cheese you pick, you have to eat every day for the next five years. Sacre bleu!
Many French are tempted to strategize instead of just voting who they like, because if no candidate wins 50% of the vote on April 22 – which seems likely – there is a round 2 election for the top two candidates. Last election, it was Chirac versus Le Pen, a scenario which horrified liberal France. (Think Bush versus Pat Buchanan. Who would you vote for?)
Le Pen doesn’t seem likely to make it to the round 2 this year. As the election nears, voters are shying away from extreme candidates and favoring Francois Bayrou, a former Education minister who has adopted the persona of a farmer, and who I think looks like an older David Duchovny. But I can’t believe the French would elect a candidate who doesn’t allow them to be constantly outraged.
