Sarkozy Begins to Slip

The French Presidential race has got interesting already. My suspicions that François Bayrou's large increase in the share of the vote could only be explained in the context of a disappearing left-wing vote have been confirmed. According to a Sofres-TNS poll only 25% of those votes are expected to go to Sarkozy while 46% will be snapped up by Royal. The remainder, according to the poll, will abstain. Which leaves everything at the moment at 51-49 in favour of Sarko. Interestingly 25% of Le Pen voters will vote Royal, which many people find incomprehensible but a white working-class French vote is as likely to go to the left as it is to a Le Pen lite in the familiar old garb of the Gaullist élite. Besides, nobody could ever accuse a Le Pen voter of being rational. This leaves everything to play for now. Ségo had just better improve on her embarrassingly bad speech on TV on Sunday night.