Striking teachers? Plus ca change - Bayrou’s Gallic shrug may win him the presidency, says
philip delves broughton |
 |
Nothing says spring in Paris like beating drums, clanging saucepans and the plaintive shouts of striking teachers marching on the Education Ministry.
So it was yesterday as the main French teachers' unions closed schools to protest against longer working hours and the cutting of 5,000 teachers assistants' jobs. In the midst of a presidential campaign in which the candidates talk breathlessly of change, a teacher's strike felt solid and familiar.
Such qualities are what the electorate seems to recognise in this year's surprise candidate, Francois Bayrou, the moderate leader of the UDF. M Bayrou has come from nowhere to garner more than 20 per cent of polled support, putting him close behind the Socialist Segolene Royal.
If he can overtake Royal in the month |
|
 |
 |
|
| Bayrou, seen as a country squire, says his rivals are the jet set, but he represents the tractor set |
|
|
remaining before the first-round vote, he has a good chance of beating the centre-right leader Nicolas Sarkozy in the second round.
A French marketing company recently conducted a survey on what voters see in M Bayrou. They said they saw him as a country squire with a large family, yet internet-savvy. M Bayrou said that Sarkozy and Royal were the Parisian jet set, while he represented the 'tractor set'. He is a passionate Europhile and fiscal conservative, insisting on a return to sensible budgets before making any rash spending promises.
Above all, unlike his rivals, he does not convey the sense that France is facing some enormous crisis. Given the barrage of depressing national statistics, that is quite a feat. Since 1990, France's economy has grown more slowly than any developed country in the world. In 2006, its two per cent growth was the worst in Europe. It also has one of the highest unemployment rates, 9.8 per cent, of any European country. Its citizens are on average 12 per cent less well-off than their British counterparts. There are now 
|
