A prime ministerial week in French politics - present, past and...er...future?

Bienvenue! to another look back at a week in French politics and as you can see from the title, the focus this time around is on prime ministers.

Before plunging head first into the "news" though, a few words on the position itself.

It's an odd sort of role in France because it's the president who gets to appoint (and sack) the person he thinks is the best man (or on one occasion, woman) for the job.

He (or she) has to come from the majority party in parliament . That's why there have been three periods of so-called "cohabitation" since the beginning of the Fifth Republic in 1958 when the prime minister and president have come from different parties.

But the position doesn't have to go to the leader of the majority party.

Had that been the case after the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, François Hollande would have chosen Martine Aubry to be prime minister.

Perish the thought!

In fact, rare though it might be, the job doesn't even have to be given to an elected representative.

During his second term as president, for example, Jacques Chirac appointed career diplomat Dominique de Villepin as prime minister for two years.

Sometimes viewed as playing second fiddle to the president, the holder of the office of prime minister is (quoting from the constitution here) charged with "directing the actions of the government, being responsible for national defence and ensuring the implementation of legislation."

And oh yes, if you happen to be Jean-Marc Ayrault, practising the art of the Coué method.

Which brings us nicely to the end of the potted (with cavernous gaps admittedly) overview and allows us to get cracking with the news.

Where better to start (although you could probably think of one) than with Ayrault himself.

In an interview with the regional daily Presse-Océan - which just happens to cover the city of Nantes, where he was mayor for 23 years (ah, can't you just hear the echoes of Arnaud Montebourg's cutting comment that Ayrault "ran the country as though it were a local council"?) the prime minister was in...well...almost "Spice Boy" mode.

Yes, he seemed to have taken a little too literally the lyrics of Baby, Ginger, Posh, Scary and Sporty's 1997 hit "Spice up your life" with an "all you need is positivity" approach.

"There are positive signs that the economy is recovering," he told the paper.

"And we must do everything we can to encourage it because our priority has to be employment."

Oh change the record M. Ayrault.

Speaking of which, do you fancy some music?

No?

Tough.



Ah. That's better. Don't you all feel full of "positivity" now?

Well you'll need to if you're going to understand what's happening with the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP).

It managed to spend the first part of the week tying itself into knots over which political direction it would or wouldn't take rather than fulfilling its role as a credible opposition.

François Fillon (screenshot BFM TV report)

And it was all down to François Fillon, Ayrault's predecessor at the Matignon.

He dropped a bit of a bombshell at the weekend saying that in next year's municipal elections, UMP supporters should vote for the "least sectarian" candidate in the second round if the party's candidate didn't make it through and it came to a straight run-off between the far-right Front National and the Socialist party.

Yikes!

What the heck was he saying?

Break with the party's policy of urging supporters to vote for neither or was he actually shifting his position?

Nobody really seemed to know and the party went into headless chicken mode as its leaders assembled to clarify policy - all agreeing that the "neither nor" strategy was the one to be followed.

Fillon even appeared in front of the cameras afterwards to repeat that he had "always been against an alliance of any sort with the FN and it had been something he had fought against all his political life" and "he had no intention of changing his position."


Fillon: "j'ai toujours combattu les alliances... par BFMTV

So. What was he up to?

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the grass roots support there is among UMP party  members for some of the FN's policies.

As revealed in a poll at the beginning of the week, over 70 per cent "agreed" with what Fillon had apparently said and were in favour of the FN being considered as a "normal" party.

Also, let's not forget that Fillon is campaigning to be his party's candidate in the 2017 presidential election.

By creating a "buzz", he had not only proven himself a little less colourless than some might have thought, but had made life a little more difficult for the party's leader, Jean-François Copé.

Yes, Fillon looks set to continue with his operation "Stir everything up" for the next...three years.

Wonderful!

So that's present and past dealt with. What about the future?

Well, there was bad news of sorts for the man tipped by many (including himself) to be a future prime minister (president and master of the universe), Manuel Valls.

The interior minister is no longer the country's favourite politician.

In the monthly (yes, these things really are produced that frequently) poll Ipsos conducts for Le Point on political popularity (rather like a hit parade but without the moo-sick) Alain Juppé (a past, past prime minister among many other things) ranked Number One with a song taken from his most recent album "I'm really the man who should be president but I prefer sitting on the sidelines and appearing all statesman-like".

Valls meanwhile, who had been Top of the Pops since October 2012, slipped a place without blowing so much as a gasket.

Now, if, for some peculiar reason, you would like to follow the progression (or otherwise) of your (least) favourite French politician from month to month, you can check out the baromètre de l'action politique Ipsos / Le Point here.

And finally - because it's just too difficult to resist - François Hollande's interview on TF1 with Claire Chazal...as interpreted by those folk over at Les Guignols de l'Info over at Canal +.

screenshot from Les Guignols video

Take the recent chart-topping hit single (yes music has been rather a laboured leitmotif during this piece) "Papaoutai" (Friday's French music break a couple of weeks ago) from Belgian singer-songwriter Stromae, fiddle with the lyrics and put them in the mouth of Hollande's puppet et...voilà "Emploioutai"

EMPLOIOUTAI ? Le tube du quinquennat - Les Guignols du 16/09

And that seems a suitable point at which to wish you a great weekend.

French presidential election 2012 - too many opinion polls - says survey

Now there's a headline that's bound to shock.

How could anyone imagine for one moment that the French would feel that way about opinion polls?

After all in the run-up to the first round in this year's presidential elections there were only 375 according to the Commission des sondages, the regulatory body which, as its name suggests, oversees opinion polls.

One of many, many opinion polls (screenshot BFM TV)

That figure is a record (surprise, surprise) far outstripping the total number in both rounds during recent presidential elections; 293 in 2007, 193 in 2002 and 111 in 1981.

And the commission sure has its work cut out with newspapers, television and radio constantly turning to the likes of BVA, CSA, Harris, Ifop, Ipsos, Opinion Way and TNS-sofres to question French voting intentions.

In a world that's far from being perfect those conducting opinion polls seem to be...well even less perfect.

Oh yes they might be congratulating themselves at the moment on getting it "almost right" but several of them underestimated by a couple of percentage points the support for the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and others overestimated for the far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The numbers aren't so dramatic according to pollsters who always give themselves that all so important "margin of error" but that doesn't stop the French from being fed up with the frequency of published polls and the perceived impact they have on voting intentions.

That's according to - of all things of course - a poll.

You just can't get away from them can you?

Even though talking to anyone on the street in France would probably give you much the same result, that would only be anecdotal of course and lacking the "objectivity" of the poll conducted by Ifop.

Anyway, according to this, in a manner of speaking, "poll of polls" 63 per cent (of those questioned) think the media publish too many of them and 60 per cent believe they have an influence on the way people vote.

But here's the thing.

By and large those questioned only consider polls can influence the way other people vote; only 15 per cent say their choice can be swayed.

As far as Frédéric Dabi, the general deputy director of Ifop is concerned, that's proof that polls have a value without distorting the outcome.

(you might need to read the following quote a few times because it seems like a classic case of doublespeak)

"Even if that percentage (believing polls can influence the way people vote) isn't negligible, the fact that the overwhelming majority believes that the surveys do not affect their vote undermines the whole discussion about the influence of polls," he says.

"It's the sort of debate that occurs every time a party or a candidate is in trouble."

Right. Understood.

So 375 opinion polls which reflect (more or less) voting intentions without having an impact on the outcome in the first round and more - many more - to follow in the second.

Whoopee!

DSK with "the wind in his sails"

This Thursday's issue of the weekly French news magazine, Le Point, should make interesting reading for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or DSK as he's most commonly known here, the head of the International Monetary Fund.

Because even though his job means he's currently based in Washington away from the cut and thrust of the domestic political scene, and his tenure there doesn't officially end until 2012, DSK has now become this country's most popular politician.

In the latest poll - yes you might remember how keen the French are on them - conducted by Ispsos on behalf of the magazine, DSK ranks first "dethroning" the former favourite the junior sports ministers Rama Yade who drops to third, and ahead of the ever-popular foreign minister Bernard Kouchner who takes second spot.

It was perhaps only a matter of time that Yade, who has held the top spot for the past five months, should slip in the ratings, after all she hasn't really been making the headlines recently for reasons controversial or otherwise.

But DSK's rise which led Le Point to describe him as having the "wind in his sails" surely keeps alive both interest about a potential presidential run in the 2012 elections, and speculation that he will at least throw his hat into the ring to be the Socialist party's candidate in the race for office.

Remember DSK's every appearance in France, be it in his official capacity or on a private visit, is closely followed - by the media at least.

Even though he made every effort to avoid the subject for example in a televised appearance on the evening news magazine "Le Grand Journal" on Canal + back in November, it just wouldn't go away.

And the latest figures will undoubtedly keep his (and probably many other people's) hopes well and truly alive.

What they indicate, apart from the fact that it's the first time DSK tops the rankings, is that he's popular across the political spectrum. Among those from his own Socialist party he has an approval rating of 63 per cent - no surprise there perhaps.

But should he decide to take a look at what supporters of the ruling centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP), think of him, he'll undoubtedly be pleasantly surprised as among them he has a 68 per cent approval rating.

All right so "agreed" opinion polls are of course never to be fully believed and can be interpreted in any way you might wish. And they don't in any way give the full picture.

But this latest one will surely keep the story of "DSK and the 2012 presidential election" well and truly alive - at least among pollsters and the media.

Just for the record, the current incumbent of the job in which DSK refuses to express a personal or professional interest (ahem), Nicolas Sarkozy, fares just as he did last month with a 38 per cent approval rating - an occupational hazard of High Office perhaps.

To be continued...

French polls: Rama Yade's popularity and Sarkozy's poor showing

Another week another poll or at least so it seems here as the French have been asked yet again to name their most popular political figure.

And topping the list is none other than the junior minister for sports, Rama Yade.

The poll comes courtesy of the weekly news magazine, Le Point.

Once a month it publishes its ranking according to a survey conducted on its behalf by Ispos "to measure the popularity of the major players in the political arena".

In the latest poll, Yade has a 61 per cent approval rating. Just behind her is the Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, (59 per cent) and in third place another Socialist politician in the shape the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (54 per cent).

All right so opinion polls are open to interpretation and they are perhaps just snapshots, if you will, of current popular opinion rather than giving the full picture.

But Yade's obvious and sustained popularity must be giving her bosses the proverbial food for thought especially as it's the fourth month in a row that the Ipsos-Le Point poll has had her topping the list.

It almost seems as though Yade's popularity among the public increases as often as, and in parallel to, the criticism she receives from government and her centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party colleagues for refusing to toe the line or be a team player as in the recent example of her opposition to a government policy to abolish tax breaks for sportsmen and women.

As the French media puts it, "The more she is the target of criticism, the more popular she is."

One dark cloud perhaps for the 32-year-old is that her popularity among supporters of the UMP party is apparently on the decline.

So Yade on the up and up - or at least enjoying a high level of support among the general French population - but what of her big boss the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy?

Well, the latest poll appears to confirm the slump in his approval ratings over the last month at just 39 per cent.

But the news probably won't come as too much of a surprise to him.

After all just last week in another poll carried out this time by Ifop on behalf of the weekly news and celebrity lifestyle magazine, Paris Match, only 39 per cent of those questioned thought he was doing a good job, compared to 45 per cent at the end of September.

And the French president, who reached the mid-point of his five-year mandate last week also admitted in an interview that he had made a number of mistakes during his presidency.

They included his highly criticised break just after his election aboard the yacht of his millionaire friend Vincent Bolloré, which he conceded had been an "error of taste", the choice of Patrick Devedjian to head the UMP party in 2007 and most recently support for the candidature (now withdrawn) of his second son, Jean, for the top job at l'Etablissement public d'aménagement du quartier d'affaires de la Défense (Epad), the development agency for business district of La Defense on the outskirts of Paris.

It wasn't the first time during his tenure that Sarkozy has acknowledged mistakes or publicly expressed his "mea culpa".

And perhaps the more humble approach will see an improvement in his approval ratings when the next slew of opinion polls, of which the French media seems to be so fond, are published.

Watch this space.