Riccardo Brizzi - 19/04/2012

     François Hollande has long been widely under-rated. The media have often complained he lacks charisma, Sarkozy regards him as a low-key rival, while within his own party many thought him unsuitable material for the top office in the land. Back in 2007 the then Secretary General of the PS failed to qualify for the socialist primaries and, but for the New York Sofitel scandal which wrecked Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s chances of the presidency, he would have been unlikely to run for the Elysée in 2012. Yet with a matter of days left to go, all the polls are unanimous: Hollande is the hot favourite for ultimate victory. Though it may be neck and neck with Sarkozy at the first ballot, the second-round pointers agree in tipping the socialist to win by a margin from 7 to 12 points, according to the source. How did this second-choice candidate manage, in the space of a few months, to become the best-credited contender for President of the Republic?

     There are three main explanations for this feat. The first is a personal merit of Hollande’s. Despite having little of the would-be republican monarch about him – that traditional credential for admission to the Elysée – he has always proved a formidable electoral opponent, pulling off a long series of triumphs at the head of the PS, be it the European, regional or municipal elections, while to his personal credit goes victory in the department of Corrèze, Chirac’s fief of old. In the present campaign he has given undisputed proof of talent as a speaker – from the Le Bourget speech that opened his candidature on 22nd January, down to the last meeting at Vincennes on Sunday 15th April. He is a master at working on the emotions that have always underpinned the history of France’s left wing.

     The second strong suit possessed by the socialist candidate is the compact support his party has given him. There is a world of difference from the 2007 presidentials when Ségolène Royal, whose slogan and image was “woman candidate against the elephants” found herself all alone facing Sarkozy, deserted by an old guard she had snubbed and a party that didn’t identify with her. In the current campaign the boot is on the other foot. After a few inevitable wrinkles at the primaries, the PS has changed its tactics: tired of winning intermediate elections (culminating in the 2010 regionals where the left swept the board in 22 out of 23 metropolitan regions – Alsace being the exception) only to miss the boat at ‘the big one’, the party has now thrown itself solidly behind its standard-bearer. The last point concerns the background to this election.

     Ongoing crisis has not only brought disillusionment with Sarkozy after the expectations of 2007, but has planted the idea that governors are practically impotent in the face of market dynamics. That being so, choosing a name for president (as Alain Duhamel argued in Libération) may degenerate into a tired ritual of no real political import. As late as 2007, the chief candidates still embodied their supporters’ dreams; today resentment and disappointment have prevailed over hope. All elections have an element of punishment, but this time it has swelled enormously and quite overshadows any manifesto considerations. Hollande’s own may contain sixty basic proposals, but the cement uniting his electors is the desire to beat Sarko. The forecasts suggest that the leftist electorate is highly porous (those 12-15% who vote Mélenchon in the first round will join ranks with the socialists in the second).

     Not so the right, which is split through and through: barely 50% of Marine Le Pen’s supporters say they will swing over to Sarkozy at a second vote. But this very factor indirectly undermines the socialist candidate’s credibility: he emerges as merely riding the anti-Sarko bandwagon, more concerned to change president than change policy. Not surprisingly, Hollande’s main worry is not the fragmenting of the left-wing vote, but abstention. The surveys say this is rising sharply and now stands around 32%, five points more than its all-time peak in 2002 (and as much as eleven points up on 2007). The presidential election is traditionally a time when the French are reconciled with politics. If participation falls off markedly, it will mean more than a wave of democratic disaffection: it will detract from the future incumbent’s legitimacy, taking half the wind out of his sails.

Riccardo Brizzi
(University of Bologna)