The first striking thing about the initial round of the French presidential election, held on April 22, was the extraordinarily high turnout — nearly 85%. You have to go back to the 1965 election to find a slightly higher figure. This was a sign of the increasing politicisation of French society in recent years, as was the fact that more than 3 million new electors registered to vote.
This high level of participation was a reflection of the fact that people are seeking political solutions to France's endemic social crisis. This was also reflected in the big turnout for the public meetings of virtually all the candidates. It would be nice to be able to say that all this benefited the left, but the figures tell a different story of a polarisation that may turn to the advantage of the right.
After one of the most unpredictable campaigns in recent history — a third of the electorate had still not made up its mind how to vote two days before the election — in the first round the hard right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy led the field with just over 31% of the vote, followed by the Socialist Party's Segolene Royal with nearly 26%.
A run-off election between Sarkozy and Royal will take place on May 6. In third place came the candidate of the centre, Francois Bayrou, with 18.55%. His strong showing — nearly three times what he got in 2002 — was a sign of many voters looking for an alternative to the succession of governments of right and left that have been in power for the last 26 years, serving neoliberal dishes where only the sauce changed. However, despite the fact that Bayrou managed quite successfully to reinvent himself as an outsider in the political game, he has in fact been around for a long time. He has consistently supported the neoliberal agenda of the present right-wing government, and he served as education minister in two governments of the right in the 1990s.
The far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen came in a poor fourth with 10.5%. This represented a loss of a million votes compared to 2002, when he created a shock by squeezing the Socialist candidate out and getting into the second round. Unfortunately, this doesn't really mean that the National Front's ideas are less popular in French society. The main reason for Le Pen losing votes was that Sarkozy took over large parts of his program and attracted many of his electors.
Sarkozy is now in with more than an even chance of becoming president. He is a very dangerous man, and he would be the most reactionary head of state that France has seen since World War II. His combination of aggressive neoliberalism, repressive law-and-order policies (he was interior minister in the outgoing government) and a nationalist, populist discourse that borders on outright racism would threaten democratic freedoms, young people and immigrants, and what is left of France's welfare state.
Faced with this prospect, Royal represents a lesser evil. But no more than that. She would also carry out neoliberal policies. And she has tried to compete with Sarkozy on his own ground, from the ridiculous (everyone should keep a French flag at home to hang out of the window) to the not-so-funny — boot camps run by the army for young offenders. She is the most right-wing Socialist candidate for many years, but she would be easier to fight than Sarkozy.
Faced with the rise of Bayrou, some senior figures in the Socialist Party, notably former prime minister Michel Rocard, called for a rapprochement with him even before the first round, pointing out, not inaccurately, that there were few policy differences. Royal herself went on a charm offensive towards Bayrou after April 22, even debating with him on television. Over and above the tactical objective of winning over Bayrou's electors on May 6, the SP's overtures to Bayrou could be the first steps towards a possible centre-right/centre-left governmental alliance, along the lines of the Italian model.
Three days before the May 6 second round, all the polls were showing Sarkozy ahead. But there is fierce opposition to him on the left, among young people and among those of immigrant origin. And if Royal does pull it off, it will be more an anti-Sarkozy vote than a pro-Royal one. A recent poll showed that 60% of Sarkozy's support came from agreement with his ideas, whereas 56% of Royal's came from rejection of Sarkozy.
After the "big four" there were eight other candidates, several of them representing a divided radical left. Overall, the forces to the left of the SP did less well than in 2002 — about 8.5% compared to 13.5%. The most successful campaign was that of Olivier Besancenot of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). It was dynamic and well-organised, putting across a clear anti-capitalist message and had a very capable candidate.
The LCR had a brilliant website and Besancenot's meetings were on average twice as big as in 2002. His result was slightly lower in percentage terms than five years ago (4.08%), but he won 290,000 more votes (nearly 1.5 million in all) because of the much higher turnout. Like the other left candidates, Besancenot suffered from the fact that many people who agreed with him voted Royal in the first round because they were so freaked out at the idea of Sarkozy as president and afraid that Royal might be eliminated in the first round, as Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin was in 2002. And, like the others, Besancenot suffered from the divisions on the left.
The other candidates did less well. For the Communist Party (PCF), with just under 2% (its worst result ever) the election was a disaster and will plunge the party into a new phase of its chronic crisis. The vote for the candidate of Lutte Ouvriere, Arlette Laguiller, also went down, from over 5% in 2002 to 1.34%. The fourth candidate, former peasant leader and global justice campaigner Jose Bove, also had a disappointing result at 1.32%. Bove came in at the last minute as an attempted "unitary" candidate.
The attempt to have a united candidate to the left of the Socialist Party, based on the unitary collectives that had existed since the European referendum campaign in 2005, broke down after the LCR and the PCF had decided to run their own campaigns. Bove tried to fill the gap, but failed to rally broad enough forces. His campaign was hastily improvised, and it showed. But he was the only candidate who brought together different forces — ecologists, dissident PCF and LCR members and many independent activists — and towards the end his campaign was improving and he was getting big meetings. But it didn't translate into enough votes.
All the left candidates have called for a vote for Royal (or in some cases "against Sarkozy") on May 6. Bove unfortunately went too far by announcing his support in a press conference along with Royal, agreeing to do a report for her on globalisation and food sovereignty, and was apparently tempted to speak at her huge (30,000-40,000) May 1 rally. But he was persuaded not to by his campaign committee, which issued a statement that called for a vote against Sarkozy but declared: "we have no illusions in the ability of Segolene Royal to carry forward a project of anti-liberal social transformation".
The movement of the unitary collectives is in disarray, after the failure to have a unitary candidacy and Bove's poor result. There is at present no significant force capable of and willing to push for unity, and in the legislative elections that will take place in June the PCF, the LCR and Lutte Ouvriere will all run competing candidates in practically all constituencies. There is no prospect of any more than a handful of unitary candidacies. But the failure to provide a credible, united, left alternative in these elections is a problem that will not go away. It will come up again and again, in future elections and in extra-parliamentary struggles, in different ways depending on whether it is Sarkozy or Royal who wins on May 6.