It’s not chic to admit it, but even
woolly liberals know it has to be
Sarkozy, says janine di giovanni |
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It's four days until the first round of the French presidential elections and most people I speak to in Paris are still uncertain about who they will vote for. You can hardly blame them. It’s been a campaign dominated by spin and fear - fear of change, fear of the candidates, fear that the welfare state is about to collapse. As for the candidates, they’ve been utterly inconsistent.
Segolene Royal, the Socialist, holds most of the typical leftist ideals - anti-big business, anti-globalisation - but is currently under fire from the far left for not being radical enough. She recently adopted two symbols of the far right: one is a penchant for singing the Marseillaise at her rallies, the other is demanding the French keep a flag in their cupboard to fly high and proud.
The centrist, Francois Bayrou, with his rural appeal, is pretty much a joke. As for the right-
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| Sarko is the only candidate who will actually do something about France’s dragging economy |
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winger, Nicolas Sarkozy, he keeps getting in hot water by coming out with ridiculous gaffes - the last one being that paedophiles have an errant gene. As a result, his lead in the polls is diminishing.
Despite that, the few people I know who will fess up to who they are supporting are all voting for Sarko. They feel he is the only candidate who will actually do something. They are fed up with France's dragging economy, with inflation, with unemployment, with the laziness that accompanies the padded welfare state.
None of these people are what you would call right-wing. Most would be Labour voters in Britain or Democrats in America. For instance, my husband, like me, is a sort of woolly liberal. He is anti-war; anti-George Bush. But he's backing Sarko. "We need someone who will kick the country in the ass," he says, "by attempting to change the French mentality. At the moment, people are always looking for a hand-out. They need a more Anglo-Saxon work ethic."
Sarko's supporters hope he will try to 
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