It is at least as well as the system in theory

The designation by the Socialist Party of Ségolène Royal as the presidential candidate is an important step in the eighth presidential election of the Fifth Republic, which the first round is set for April 22, 2007, and the second two weeks later. Here at the end of January the date stop printing of ballots , all candidates must be known. At this stage, the four major French political parties, two left and two on the right will have each prepared their political manifesto and chosen their candidate.

It is at least as well as the system in theory. In practice, while the campaign is supposed to last for two months (long enough in a democracy, where candidates must endure a constant barrage on the part of the media), operations of potential candidates, and the taste of the media for the competition have been campaign there is nearly a year and a half. Today's public debates, for this reason, one a somewhat surreal, because the programs on which will be the candidates are not yet defined. In the absence of political programme, it is the personality and style that prevail. I'm not sure that this is good for democracy, but it is so.

Two charismatic personalities currently dominate opinion polls and appear destined to meet in the second round. The right candidate is Nicolas Sarkozy, Minister of the Interior (and briefly Minister for the economy), whose political rise is listed under the catch-all party Union for a popular movement (UMP). This party is the political heir of Gaullism, but its ideological inconsistency is legendary and is reflected by the change of name of the party every eight to ten years.

Politically, Sarkozy is a conservative, but on the economic front, he is a fervent supporter of liberalism, an ideology diametrically opposed to the Gaullist tradition. Advocate privatization and social repression, it is positioned to the right of the right, in the hope of recovering the votes that the traditional right for twenty years in the national Front, the Party of far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Sarkozy is imposed on the Gaullist movement against the wishes of President Jacques Chirac; better, he took over the Presidency of the UMP despite virulent opposition from Chirac. A large part of the public appreciates his raw language and his criticism of the rest of the right, including the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, but above all of Chirac. It ignores all international affairs, but no one seems to hold it against him.

The left, Royal, the Socialist President of the Poitou-Charentes region, has limited experience of Government and briefly held the positions of Minister of the environment, Minister of family and Minister of Education. The anger of the tenors of the Socialist Party before his ascension was spicy. It must still take a position on the main problems of the moment financial instability, weak European growth, the Middle East and it will not be able to avoid them during the election campaign. But its elegance and charm, and treating sense and energy of the social problems she has to stay at the top of polls for more than a year.

Is therefore expected that Sarkozy and Royal are both candidates in the running for the confrontation of the second round. But to judge from experience passed, is not as well as French politics works.

Since de Gaulle, all the presidential candidates who started too early lost. Poher, Chaban - Delmas, Barre, Balladur and myself were targeted by the media and considered candidates, declared or not, more than two years before the election and we were all beaten in the end. My feeling is that media pressure is so intense that the credibility of a candidate cannot endure for more than a few weeks. Overexposure.

In this bizarre ballet, where the main parties and candidates know it is better to start later, the only beneficiaries of the media circus are candidates with no real chance to win: a right-wing extremist, yet another, a Communist, two Trotskyists and various marginal personalities, thus benefiting from two years of free advertising.

But these candidates underscore a more serious problem. To be elected President of the France, it needs more than charisma, a good program and a strong political party. Also avoid the pitfall of fragmentation, which has been losing the left in 2002, when none of its candidates did qualify for the second round. Jacques Chirac, who had collected that 19 of the vote in the first round, the percentage the lowest a candidate elected to the Presidency, finally won it against Jean-Marie Le Pen with 82 of the vote in the second round. The more openly conservative French Government over the last decade was essentially elected by voters from the left.

A repeat of this scenario seems possible: the left already has four candidates of the Socialist Party and it is likely that a fifth appears. On the right, Chirac's antagonism toward Sarkozy makes it that of another person, or Michele Alliot-Marie, the Minister of defence, or Chirac himself.

At this point, it must be remembered that the last seven presidential elections have sprung a surprise. Polls were never allowed to predict the final result more than six weeks in advance. The elections are still too distant to guess or predict anything with certainty. What is said is pure speculation. But at least the media find their interest for our largest entertainment.