Whatever happened to the Third Man?

It can’t be easy being an almost-ran. Just five months ago François Bayrou, then leader of the centre-right UDF party, was riding high in the polls for the presidential election. He was the so-called Third Man of French politics.

There was talk of him squeezing past the Socialist party’s candidate, Segolene Royal, to make it through to the second round head-to-head with Nicolas Sarkozy. Opinion polls even put him ahead of Sarkozy in a hypothetical run-off.

But as we all know he fell short of the two leading candidates in spite of garnering a highly respectable 18 per cent of the popular vote.

As the Third Man he played his part as bad loser pretty well, tentatively “reaching out” to Royal to present a quasi Centre-Left alliance to counter Sarkozy, but ultimately refusing to endorse either candidate in round two, preferring to retreat sulkily to the sidelines.

After seeing Sarkozy triumph, he then suffered the ignominy of witnessing most of his party’s parliamentarians desert him as they ran into the welcoming embrace of Sarkozy’s UMP. Even his election manager and close buddy (until then) Hervé Morin accepted a prime post in the new government as defence minister.

Bayrou retaliated, displaying all his possible spoiler tactics in creating a new Centre party – the Movement for Democracy (Or MoDem) for June’s parliamentary elections. It was supposed to be a new way forward, a party of solidarity to unite all hues of the political spectrum. But simultaneously Sarkozy, from a position of real power, was doing exactly the same thing – and picking off the best talent from both the Socialists and the UDF to form his own version of open government.

MoDem won just four seats in the elections for the 577-strong National Assembly.

While the Socialists spent much of the summer squeaking in indignation and blaming each other – its leaders are still bickering among themselves - Bayrou took time out (thank goodness) gathered his troops and remained gloriously silent.

The media focused on the wound-licking of the Socialists, the “matrimonial” split between the party’s chairman, François Hollande and Segolene Royal, the defection of Médecins Sans Frontières co-founder Bernard Kouchner (now foreign minister) and Sarkozy’s proposed candidature of Dominique Strauss-Kahn (a former contender for the Socialist nomination for president himself) to head the International Monetary Fund (still not a done deal). Nothing was heard from Bayrou.

Well now he’s back.

The first official MoDem party conference took place over the weekend. It was an eclectic mix of the seemingly disillusioned – Socialists, UMPers and a smattering of UDFers alike. Over 2,000 faithful attended, including a roll call of national non-entities many of whom appear to have achieved political stardom by getting themselves elected to the European parliament.

The whole shebang was even broadcast live on telly. Not bad for a party with so few MPs. Unfortunately perhaps the coverage was on a much-respected, but little-viewed private channel and probably roused only the interest of only the most avid political nerd (!)

Still it’s a start. And Bayrou followed it up with an appearance on the national evening news, commending Sarkozy (with whom he had coincidentally been granted an “audience” on Thursday) for his energy in his first few months in office. Praise indeed, coupled with an admission that it was rather the opposition parties who had shown their fatigue over the same period of time.

But he didn’t hold back on the criticism either, accusing the President of aligning France too closely to the US model of “doing” politics and as a consequence diminishing the country’s independent voice on the international stage.

On the domestic front Bayrou denounced Sarkozy’s “peoplisation of political life”, where ministers take on celebrity-like status at the expense of policy, and charged the government with pandering to big business, providing tax breaks for the wealthy and doing little to reduce social inequality.

Fighting talk indeed, but lacking in substance for the moment. Perhaps though Bayrou will be able to forge an effective Centre-based opposition – he has the next five years to find out. And there is conceivably a far-fetched possibility on the horizon.

While the Socialists have opened discussions with France’s own version of the (not so) loveable Looney Left and Greens, they remain divided by personality clashes and a distinct lack of direction.

Could a daring leap into the unknown prove to be their salvation with Bayrou himself proving to be the catalyst for some dramatic shake-up of the French political landscape?

Although she’s being fired on from all quarters within her party, Segelone Royal (still immensely popular among the party’s grassroots) is keeping a relatively low profile. Would she at some point be willing to join forces with Bayrou and form a real opposition or is that just idle speculation?

Sarkozy marches on, but for any democracy to work effectively it needs a viable opposition – and maybe, just maybe, Bayrou is the man to help provide that.

A week may be a long time in politics but five years must seem an eternity. Still at least it will give Bayrou the chance perhaps to prove he is something more than simply the Third Man.