French choices

Opinion polls continue to show Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal all but neck and neck heading into next April/May's French Presidential election. But in order for such head-to-head polling to be meaningful, both first have to make it into the second round, which, in 2002, the Socialist Party candidate Lionel Jospin famously failed to do, when the National Front's Jen-Marie le Pen piped him by 200000 votes. This time around, should Sarkozy, as expected, defeat his only declared challenger for the UMP ticket, Michèle Alliot-Marie, both the main two candidates look set to sail handily into the runoff. But the spectre of a candidate who has no hope of securing the backing of half the French electorate in a second round nevertheless making it into such a situation is far from buried. IFOP-Le Monde's polling of 17th-18th November asked respondents their support for both Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, the current President who has not yet ruled out running for a third term. In the latter case, respondents gave Le Pen, Chirac and François Bayrou, the candidate of the Union of French Democracy who has promised a 'Third Way' in French politics, 15% of first round votes apiece. Bayrou's chances in a runoff with Royal are moot, but Le Pen would be almost certain to face a similar fate to his eventual humiliation in 2002, when he increased his share of the vote by less than 1% as 82.21% voters backed Chirac.

Chirac, however, aged and unpopular after a decade in power, is unlikely to stand again, so for now at least this issue perhaps seems academic. But a system which fails to deliver voters a real choice in the final round of an election is clearly flawed. What is needed is an 'instant runoff' regime - effectively when single transferable voting is applied to a single-winner election - which sees voters rank the candidates by preference, with the more successful accumulating votes as those with less support are weeded out. In France, votes initially given to alternative left or right-of-centre parties would tend to migrate towards the Socialists and UMP, thus excluding extremist candidates who have no hope of securing a mainstream majority. Instant-runoff would also have the beneficial effect of strengthening support for moderate third party candidates such as Bayrou, a vote for whom is currently effectively wasted, thus weakening the unhealthy duopoly the Socialists and UMP currently hold. Nevertheless, it would be best if instant-runoff was only used to whittle the field down to two, for maintaining an second round serves a useful function by emphasising the ultimate choice faced by the electorate. What is vital is ensuring that this choice is meaningful. In a year in which the power of the street trumped that of parliament in the furore generated by the doomed-CPE, there has been talk of a coming crisis in French politics and the potential end of the 5th Republic. If and when a new one is born, let us hope it delivers a healthier democracy than the current one.