Meet the 11.5 French presidential candidates

[Flagg]

Eleven contenders have made it to the first round of the French presidential elections. Jose Bove, the moustached farmer-activist must wait until Monday to find out if he has enough signatures to have a go at France’s top job.

The Belfast Telegraph has a concise overview of the twelve men and women:

NICOLAS SARKOZY, 52, the Interior Minister, and candidate of the ruling centre-right Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire, leads the polls. M. Sarkozy, who promises radical reform, is still awaiting an endorsement by his estranged former mentor, President Jacques Chirac.



JEAN-MARIE LE PEN, 78, of the ultra-right National Front, hopes to repeat his startling 2002 appearance in the second round. He began the campaign trying to appear more moderate, but has reverted to immigrant-bashing in recent weeks.



MARIE-GEORGE BUFFET, 57, Communist, commands nothing like the support of past French Communist leaders. Mme Buffet lacks the charisma to reverse the party’s slow, 30-year decline towards irrelvance at national level.


OLIVIER BESANCENOT, 32, is a handsome, charismatic, smoothe-talking Trotskyist postman and the candidate of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire. He reprseents a kind of “pragmatic Trotskyism” and is tipped to move into the centre left as he grows older.


SÉGOLENE ROYAL, 53, Socialist, hopes to be France’s first woman president. Mme Royal, campaigning to bring pragmatic “Scandinavian socialism” to France, is just about holding onto second place. The polls suggest that she would be comfortably beaten by Sarkozy in the second round.


DOMINIQUE VOYNET, 49, a former environment minister, is candidate for the Greens, as she was in 1995. A pleasant and intelligent woman, she has failed to make much impact in the polls


ARLETTE LAGUILLER, 66, is the perennial candidate of the mysterious, sect-like Trotskyist party, Lutte Ouvrière. Mme Laguiiller is on her sixth, and, she says, her last, presidential campaign: a fine record for someone who believes in revolution, not democracy.


FRÉDÉRIC NIHOUS, 39, is candidate of the “hunters’ party” , Chasse Pêche, Nature, Traditions. He is an almost complete unknown who has failed to shift the party out of a very narrow, rural base.


FRANÇOIS BAYROU, 55, candidate of the centrist Union pour la Démocratie Française , has upset the odds by surging from nowhere since mid-January to challenge the two big party candidates of right and left. M. Bayrou’s most popular promise is that he “promises nothing”.



JOSÉ BOVÉ, 53, the former small farmers’ leader and anti-globalist campaigner, is an independent far-left and rural rights candidate. He faces a jail sentence for illegally cutting down genetically modified crops once his campaign is over.


PHILIPPE DE VILLIERS, 58, is the patrician leader of the anti-immigrant, anti-European, pro-family Mouvement pour la France. He campaigns against what he calls the “Islamisation” of France but hates to be compared to Le Pen.



GÉRARD SCHIVARDI, 56, a bricklayer and village mayor, is candidate of the anti-European, anti-Capitalist, Parti des Travailleurs. Although it commands less than 0.5 per cent of the vote in the polls, the party claims to have three different ideological tendencies.



http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2366768.ece
http://frogsmoke.com/

[foo_bar]

1. 11.25 if you count LePen

Or discount him rather; mais tout es possible à celui qui croit.

[BayCityProgressive]

2. hm

the right wing seems to have quite a hold on France.

[NoPasaran]

3. ???

Those on the left have their choice of a Communist, a Socialist, two Trotskyists and one other left sectarian.

[BayCityProgressive]

4. right

they have the choice..I am just saying the right wing and center candidates seem to be in th elead, as they have been the last few presidential elections. I may be mistaken, but I believe the last local or parliamentary elections were won by the socialists.

[NoPasaran]

5. I see

As an old ex-trot, I'm always amazed that French politics can support not one, but two competing Trotskist groupings. Of course, they also produce a brazillion kinds of cheese, maybe that explains it.

[Mass]

6. Way too early to know how it will go. Only 3 candidates have a chance to make it to

the secound round: Bayrou, Royal, and Sarkozy.

If Bayrou is in the second round, he wins as he is the only acceptable alternative to the supporters of the candidate who does not make it. (I certainly will run to vote for him against Sarkozy if this is the choice, even though I certainly want Royal to win and will vote for her in the first round to assure that).

If not, all odds are off. Royal is considered not experienced enough as she did not hold any major ministry. Sarkozy is certainly way too right wing for most.

As for the fact that Segolene Royal would lose badly against Sarkozy, the two polls today show her behind, but clearly within the MOE, so, it is far from being a done deal, just as it is not clear for me from the polls which two candidates will make it to the second round.