François Bayrou - the return of the "third man" of French politics

The leader of the centre party Mouvement démocrate (MoDem), François Bayrou, is back in the headlines with the timely publication of a new book, "Abus de pouvoir" in which he takes aim at the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Its release comes just five weeks before the European parliamentary elections in June and has given rise within the French media as to possible political alliances in the run-up to that vote and the potential consequences afterwards.

Although Bayrou is keen to point out that the book is not a personal attack on Sarkozy, it's still being interpreted as a reflection on how he considers the office of president to have been diminished under its present incumbent.

The two men have never been particularly close and the leader of MoDem still clearly fancies his chances at a run for the French presidency in 2012.

"The values Sarkozy has chosen to represent don't match the function of the office," Bayrou said on national radio.

"The president (of France) has to be someone who sees 'success' as something other than the pursuit of money."

Not surprisingly perhaps there are some very different political interpretations being made about the contents of Bayrou's book and his possible influence on the French political landscape.

It very much depends on where your political affiliations lie and which national daily newspaper you read.

In an editorial the centre-right Le Figaro goes as far as to suggest that the opposition Socialist party, so long riven by internal bickering and disagreement over its future direction, has finally found its potential leader - in the form of Bayrou.

The paper describes the Socialist party's attitude towards Bayrou as "bees around honey" and it cites the former party leader, François Hollande, in an interview last month with the weekly news magazine L'Express as evidence in the change of approach.

In the interview Hollande is quoted as saying the party needs to "clarify convergences and divergences" with MoDem - a rather different line from just two years ago when, as leader, he was vehemently opposed to any suggestion of an alliance.

For a completely different interpretation of what's happening though, readers need look no further than the pages of the left-of-centre daily Libération.

The paper carries an editorial in which it suggests that those who should be most unsettled by the current flow within French politics are above all the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) and Sarkozy's supporters.

There are signs emerging, suggests the paper, not so much of an "alliance of the centre" but rather the possibility of a grand coalition "post-Sarkozy"; one that will take into account a number of dissatisfied elements. The proof is that even the Socialist party has begun openly to discuss such a possibility of looking for common ground.

Whatever the case may be, Bayrou certainly seems determined to overcome the role of the "third man", a term used to describe him during the last presidential election in 2007, especially after his solid showing in the first round of voting.

Bayrou notched up 18 per cent of the popular vote, and although that wasn't sufficient to make it through to a second-round run-off, it was enough to make Ségolène Royal sit up and take notice.

History of course has since shown us that Royal's overtures to Bayrou for him to endorse her were unsuccessful and instead he found himself rather isolated politically-speaking.

Much of the rest of his party the centre/centre-right Union pour la démocratie française (Union for French Democracy, UDF) upped sticks and changed camps to join forces with Sarkozy's UMP.

Bayrou retaliated and created MoDem for the parliamentary elections in June 2007, with himself at the helm of course.

It won just four seats in the 577-strong National Assembly, hardly the most auspicious of beginnings.

But Bayrou never really went away and surely while there might be disagreement as to his impact on French politics, there seems to be a general consensus that he is likely to remain a thorn in someone's side.

It's just not clear whose.