Friday, May 4, 2007

The Horserace

The French presidential election is in the homestretch, and while there were a number of developments this week, none had a significant impact on the race. The debate between the two candidates was interesting for how they both played against type than for any knockout punches landed.

Sarkozy remained calm and restrained, while Royal came out swinging from her opening statement. The highlight was an exchange where Royal either showed authentic, "healthy" anger, as she called it, or lost her cool, as Sarkozy claimed. I thought the former, but her demeanor was probably more parliamentarian than presidential, in retrospect.

Afertward, François Bayrou, the "third man", announced he would "not vote for Sarkozy", but he stopped short of an explicit endorsement of Royal. Today is the last day of campaigning, followed by a moratorium on public announcements and website updates until Sunday's voting.

All of the polls point to a Sarkozy victory, by varying margins. But the trends have held consistently for months now. So barring a last-minute bombshell, and it's hard to imagine what that could look like, Sunday evening will hold no surprises. 

Posted by Judah in:  La Presidentielle   

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