I stumbled upon this gem in Hannah Arendt‘s book The Origins of Totalitarianism :

“The Okhrana, the Czarist predecessor of the GPU, is reported to have invented a filing system in which every suspect was noted on a large card in the center of which his name was surrounded by a red circle; his political friends were designated by smaller red circles and his nonpolitical acquaintances by green ones; brown circles indicated persons in contact with friends of the suspect but not known to him personally; cross-relationships between the suspect’s friends, political and nonpolitical, and the friends of his friends were indicated by lines between the respective circles. Obviously the limitations of this method are set only by the size of the filing cards, and, theoretically, a gigantic single sheet could show the relations and cross-relationships of the entire population. And this is the utopian goal of the totalitarian secret police: a look at the gigantic map on the office wall should suffice at any given moment to establish, not who is who or who thinks what, but who is related to whom and in what degree or kind of intimacy. The totalitarian ruler knows that it is dangerous to send a person to a concentration camp and leave his family and particular milieu untouched; [It is a common practice in Soviet Russia to arrest whole families; Hitler’s “Health Bill” also foresaw the elimination of all families in which one member was found to be afflicted with a disease.] the map on the wall would enable him to eradicate people without leaving any traces of them-or almost none. Total abolition of legality is safe only under the condition of perfect information, or at least a degree of knowledge of private and intimate details which evokes the illusion of perfection”.

Hannah Arendt‘s nightmare social mapping system was somewhat mitigated by the technological limits of her time – The Origins of Totalitarianism was published in 1951 and in her mind the information processing technology capable of supporting an extensive social graph was still about as far away as it seemed to the Czarist secret police. But today we are all busy building representations of the social graph to support and enrich our interactions. We are busy on social networking tools making the secret police’s work and making their dream come true.

Have we lost our minds and forgotten about the dangers ? Not quite : privacy management remains at the center of most social graph use cases. But this is a superficial defense : if a totalitarian state was to emerge among our society I know I would be as good as dead – or rather disappeared without a trace.

Luckily I am an European and I therefore enjoy the benefits of a life with historically high levels of freedom. But evil is never as far away as we imagine, and the generation of our grandparents who experienced totalitarism will not remain among us much longer to remind us that.

“You must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government” — Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

Mentioning video surveillance, a sticker on the T2 tram line in Paris refers to it as “video protection”. Considering the dubious efficiency of video surveillance for crime deterrence in unpatrolled spaces, I think we have a beautiful specimen of pristine security bullshit with bonus points for creative use of newspeak. While thinking about it I could almost hear a friendly security agent tell me “please sir, it is for your own safety”. I hope it is the last time I read “video protection” as a way to muddle the negative connotations of video surveillance under a layer of weasel fur, but I guess not.

And while I am at it, let it be known that I am not against video surveillance. I am against the incoherent, inefficient and  expensive dogmatic use of video surveillance for political purposes by flattering popular paranoia with a warm and fuzzy pixie dusted security blanket. Video surveillance is a mildly dissuasive technological extension of patrol work that requires real time attention and human resources for reaction and investigation – like all fortifications it is useless if it is not sufficiently manned. And like all tools it is more than useless if acquired for no profitable purpose other than furthering the personal ambitions of political leaders.

The story has been getting recently some more exposure, but it has been going on for years with sporadic appearances in mainstream media. It is still quietly under-reported in contrast to the widely hyped Darfur crisis.

As we can see in Sudan, killing civilians and destroying infrastructure is a practical method of ethnic purification that can yield useful results. But the social fabric itself is left intact – and with it the opponent still has the potential to survive as an organized group. But to really annihilate the opposition, its social fabric has to be torn up. And that is the motive behind the massive organized rape campaign in eastern Congo. Some of it is random violence comparable to what is found in any other armed conflict, but there is a disturbing trend that shows a systematic approach : the heart of darkness has found its weapon of mass destruction. According to the UN representative, the prevalence and intensity of sexual violence against women in eastern Congo are “almost unimaginable”.

A UN report found that in the central Equateur province, the police and army often responded to civil unrest “with organised armed reprisals that target the civilian population and involve indiscriminate pillage, torture and mass rape”. It is most notable that this violence is not the uncontrolled acts of random rebels, but planified operations executed by official armed forces. Of course, violence by state armed forces against civilian population is not a Congolese monopoly, but it is still an alarming signal that something is going very wrong, especially at this level and this extent.

In traditional societies, in the absence of a centralized impartial power to enforce social order, honor within the group is by far the most important measure by which relations of trust are established and preserved. Lose it and you lose everything. When you have witnessed how touchy members of traditional societies are when they feel the tiniest slight to what they perceive as their honor, you can understand how utterly ruined they are after every conceivable taboo has been broken in front of them. It goes beyond the sheer psychological shock of the abomination : in modern societies there is a safety net that can help in mending a broken life and starting again – medical, psychological, professional and financial help – but in the chaos of eastern Congo there is nothing of the sort. Losing all social links is a catastrophic event as bad as the physical effects of the violence. In practical terms, survivors of rape face abandonment by husbands, discrimination by the whole community and a very bleak future.

John Holmes, the UN emergency relief coordinator remarked : “It’s the scale and brutality of it, it’s the use of it as a weapon of terror. It’s the way it’s done publicly, for maximum humiliation. It’s hard to understand”. Actually, when put into the context of a systematic use for social destruction it makes a lot of sense. With a heavy medical burden unsupported by any health care, with overwhelming shame and no psychological support, with sexually transmitted diseases and a destroyed reproductive system that voids all prospects of bearing children, women not only lose their role as pillar of their community but they also become a constant reminder of the humiliation, a vehicle for the hopelessness. And their former community that rejects them suffers just as heavy a blow to its cohesion.

Again, the key point is that those horrendous violences are not reported to be the product of the random urges of some isolated criminally perverse elements – they are part of a systematic campaign against entire populations. The yet to be open case should not waste time targeting the lowly executioners : if the phenomenon is as widely spread as reports suggest, then it cannot exist without approval and active support from their military hierarchy. Some major war criminals are out there, still free to roam and take profit from the continuing suffering of the population. And we have not even started to denounce them, so it is not even worth mentioning doing anything against them.

Sadly, we are not interested in doing anything to stop the crisis in Congo : a meaningful intervention would be hugely expensive and last a generation. In all honesty, I am not ready to pay for that, nor are you – so we simply look away. From a Realpolitik point of view that may be a sound strategic decision. But from an humanitarian point of view the least we can do is not to let the horror stare us down when we look at it in the face.

If you wish to help, you can promote awareness of the humanitarian situation in Eastern Congo, or for a more direct impact you can get in touch with the Panzi Hospital whose action in the treatment of sexual violence has been exemplary.

The Economist has just concluded a series of detailed articles on terrorism and civil liberties (1, 2, 3). I have been particularly touched by how the editorial introduction to the series has made an essential point in a stunningly courageous way :

“[..] We accept that letting secret policemen spy on citizens, detain them without trial and use torture to extract information makes it easier to foil terrorist plots. To eschew such tools is to fight terrorism with one hand tied behind your back. But that—with one hand tied behind their back—is precisely how democracies ought to fight terrorism. [..]

Human rights are part of what it means to be civilised. Locking up suspected terrorists—and why not potential murderers, rapists and paedophiles, too?—before they commit crimes would probably make society safer. Dozens of plots may have been foiled and thousands of lives saved as a result of some of the unsavoury practices now being employed in the name of fighting terrorism. Dropping such practices in order to preserve freedom may cost many lives. So be it”.

Considering the care that the editors of The Economist usually take in exercising opinions, such bold stand against the way we currently fight against terrorism has taken me by surprise. And it expresses better than I so far managed to conceive the profound reason why, in the fight to uphold our values, letting the ends justify the means is counter-productive : you cannot fight in the name of your own values if you sell your own soul.

Different regimes have different constraints, choosing democracy comes with specific ones and acting within them is the price we must keep paying without reneging. If we don’t we are just loosing ourselves and there will only be pyrrhic victories.

The song “Guantanamera” is such an omnipresent timeless classic tune that the mere mention of it immediately recalls its irresistible groove in anyone. But Guantanamo is now a name draped in an infamy that may well become just as famous as the song. So since a couple of years, every time I think about that song I can’t help but associate the concepts.

Now I want you to associate them too ! Every time you hear that song I want you to think about all the losers imprisoned in Camp X-ray without cause. Think about how arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention without trial, extraordinary rendition and suspension of habeas corpus are actually sapping at the foundation of the very freedom that our democracies are supposed to uphold.

When I started writing this post five minutes ago, I thought I was the only one to have thought of using that song as a symbol… But as usual in the global memetic ocean, like-minded individuals exposed to the same set of stimuli will produce the same response – so much for my delusion of being creative… Shortly after starting researching some context for this article I stumbled about the most unlikely like-minded individual : Richard Stallman the Free Software pionneer and undefatiguable advocate !

Richard Stallman even went a step further by writing new lyrics for the tune and recorded it with amateur Cuban musicians. So pass the mike to Sir Richard !

Eleven years ago, my posse of fellow computer geeks and myself created a .wad file modeling our business school in Angers, France so that we could play Doom in that familiar environment, frag each other with automatic weapons, slaughter the occasional teacher caricatured as a monster and catch hapless hostages in the crossfire.

I handled the 3D modeling, Erik and Nicolas chose the graphics and made some custom ones to supplement Doom’s standard issue gore fest, Benoît created custom sounds and Aymeric graced the level with an adequately creepy MIDI soundtrack of his creation. None of us has been expelled and we all live happy and prosperous lives.

To help me produce the 3D model, school personnel enthusiastically provided me with the blueprints for the school building – nowadays in the USA those guys would be fired for breach of security.

And we later even convinced the school to host a 200 player tournament – 100 teams of two competing two against two on two networks of four computer provided by the school in a room given to us for the duration of the event. The final rounds took place in our custom level and I recall passionate players and captivated spectators including professors.

That was in 1996. We had a great time both designing the level and organizing the tournament. And no one would ever have imagined that games would one day become a social issue worth suspending a student over mere suspicions.

Nowadays, when a student creates Counter-Strike map of school he gets kicked out :

“In the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, schools around the country are on high alert for any suspicious activity on the part of their students. The problem comes when this heightened sense of fear leads to stories like the case of a Texas teenager who was suspended from his high school and moved into an alternative school. The reason? He played Counter-Strike on his home computer, on a level that was designed to look like his high school. [..]”

In a few years time in schoolyards, kids will not play “police and thieves” anymore for even in kindergarten they will be aware that playing the thieve’s side is a potential carreer liability…

Full text of “French voters discover the third way”, an article by Henry Samuel published on the 19th March by The Daily Telegraph :

François Bayrou wears the bemused smile of a man still coming to terms with the fact that he now stands a fair chance of being elected president of France next month. “I’m a man coming from a family of farmers and I have my feet on the ground; I’m not dreaming,” the centrist contender from the Union for French Democracy told The Daily Telegraph in Tarbes, on his home soil in the Pyrenees. An also-ran before Christmas, the mild mannered 55-year-old is now considered the “third man” in the electoral race, just behind second-placed Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal and current favourite, Nicolas Sarkozy, backed by the ruling Right-wing UMP party. Lurking in fourth is the far-Right National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

“I am not, how do you say Babette?” turning to his wife with whom he has six children, “drunk on polls and media and all that, but I am proud of the support of millions of people who want to change things and want to force change. It is the battle of my life”.

“Le Béarnais” as the French media call the Christian Democrat contender, had just given a two-hour speech to a crowd of around 2,000 gathered in a hastily erected marquee outside the town hall, in which there was insufficient room.

An unwilling potential first lady, Elisabeth Bayrou, had stepped blushing on to the stage in jeans for her first campaign appearance. “I have no interest in politics. I come when I’m told to,” she said. The couple sat together after a marathon week apart that has taken Mr Bayrou from troubled Parisian banlieues, where riots flared two years ago, to within 25 miles of his home town in Bordères, where he rears racehorses.

This town and country mix sums up perfectly the appeal of Mr Bayrou, who plays on his rural roots while referring to his academic credentials and past experience as a Cabinet minister: in his recently-released book, Projet d’Espoir (Project of Hope), he sums up his love of tractors by quoting the French poet Lamartine.

His supporters are fond of transforming the French expression “the mayonnaise will thicken” to “le Béarnais prendra”, a metaphor suggesting that the nationwide surge of support for his candidacy in recent weeks will not curdle. Two polls last week suggested he may be losing ground, but a third last Friday showed that he was level with Miss Royal.

But the question is, has he peaked? Mr Bayrou’s call for Right and Left to join hands in a German-style government of unity has captured the French imagination, but could yet founder on concerns that his small party will not command a majority in June’s parliamentary elections. His rivals claim the resulting cohabitation of Right and Left will paralyse the government and have ruled out any alliance.

He brushed this aside: “A new political method and landscape will emerge and a new way to work together as opposed to one against another. The French will send the Left and Right back to the drawing board. I will govern by bringing together new, competent people representing the entire country and believe me, there will be lots willing to take up the call. I have no doubt that the Socialists will respond.” A poll released last week showed that 65 per cent of French welcomed the idea.

He wants to bolster an “impotent” parliament which is “no longer representative of the country” by ensuring all major policy decisions are debated in full and by adding a dose of proportional representation.

Even if this opens the door to extremist deputies, he argues, they are better fought face to face. One Sarkozy aide recently claimed that such a plan would lead to Italian-style paralysis, at a time when France required a Churchill, not a Prodi.

“Perhaps he should learn his history better and not muddle up periods. I am a great admirer of Churchill and, by the way, a friend of Romano Prodi, even if his political set up is not exactly mine. But such attacks are ridiculous.”

Could France then benefit from a Margaret Thatcher? “I think that France has its own project for society and that this project cannot be lifted from those of another [country]. In France we should not try and copy any other political model whatsoever. We have our own project and our own values. For example, France is a country that loves unity and needs to live in unity – British society needs this a bit less. These are differences. We assume our differences.

“But I love the United Kingdom, I love English people. It is a civilisation not only a society. It is a great society and you are such fun.”

Mr Bayrou insisted that the strike-prone French are no more resistant to change than the British, so long as long as it is well explained and discussed. A fervent federalist, he claims that the real reason the French voted No in a referendum on the European constitution was that the text was unreadable, and that a new, shorter one would pass. He wants to drive “peaceful change” through “alliance” rather than “rupture” – a word associated with the more radical Mr Sarkozy.

He had mixed feelings about Tony Blair: “I appreciated him very much in the first years in office, I recognise the merits of a third way, also in the style of Bill Clinton. But I had great differences with his position over the Iraq war, which I imagine he himself sometimes regrets.”

Overall, he feels closest to the Liberal Democrats, “many of whom are my friends”.

And yet they have never managed to get into power.

“Well, it is in this way that France can show itself to be a pioneering country. We are going to show that it is perfectly possible to build a third way, and that we are not always obliged to be prisoners of two parties who have the monopoly of power.”

In what ways would his presidency differ from that of Jacques Chirac, widely seen in Britain as a republican monarch?

“It was not just Jacques Chirac; every president in the last 25 years behaved as a republican monarch and this will change because I am a man of democratic behaviour. I want to be simple in my life and respect citizens,” said Mr Bayrou, who pledged symbolically to cut expenditure at the Elysée palace by 20 per cent in his first year in office. “I want a republic which respects the rules that parents teach to their children. It’s as simple as that.”

What of the general view in Britain that the man best-placed to really bring about change in France and drag it into the 21st century is Nicolas Sarkozy? “They are mistaken and they will have a chance to find out why very soon.”

Mr Bayrou was twice an education minister in Right-wing governments, but has rebranded himself as somehow “outside” a system which the French are clearly unhappy with.

As an orator, Mr Bayrou lacks the electric charisma of Mr Sarkozy, but scores points with his clear, down-to-earth style somewhere between a teacher and “père de famille”.

Full text of “French voters discover the third way”, an article by Henry Samuel published on the 19th March by The Daily Telegraph.

Full text of “Tractor-driving ’son of the soil’ ruffles election tactics of his French presidential rivals”, an article by Angelique Chrisafis published on the 19th March by The Guardian :

At the kitchen table of his home in a tiny village at the foot of Pyrenees, François Bayrou, the gentleman farmer and shock challenger in the French presidential election, was eating his usual breakfast of dry toast. Three cats purred beside him as he explained why, as a “son of the soil”, he has emerged to rescue France from its “profound malaise”.

In an interview with the Guardian, the first foreign press that the intensely private Mr Bayrou has invited into his home in the village where he was born, he explained why France needs “electric shock therapy”, but not a Margaret Thatcher. “The French people need unity, if not, the country will explode.”

Mr Bayrou, the centrist whose sudden rise is threatening both the rightwing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist Ségolène Royal, owes much of his popularity to his image as a tractor-driving “man of the people”. A statue of the Virgin Mary perched on a kitchen shelf and postcards of the French countryside decorated the kitchen cupboards as he chatted to his wife Babette about whether to get a labrador. The only hint of his status was a magazine carelessly thrown in the fruit basket with the headline, “Bayrou president?”

“I was a great admirer of Tony Blair for his first few years, although with the Iraq war I distanced myself,” he said. “But I am a man of the third way.” He felt the French, battered by unemployment and “distrustful” of the traditional left and right, were ready to declare themselves social democrats.

For weeks, Mr Bayrou, a thoroughbred-breeder known as the horsewhisperer, has been throwing the opinion polls into disarray. An election once seen as a clear “Sarko v Sego” runoff now seems hard to predict. Last week, his latest book, Project of Hope, calling for a new republic where power shifts from a monarchic president back into the hands of parliament, and promising to end the French “caste” system of a ruling privileged elite, shot into the bestseller list. So unexpected is the rise of the one-time education minister and head of the small, centrist UDF party, that half the nation still mispronounces his name. (The “Bay” is pronounced like the English word “bye”).

His house sits in a quiet village below the Pyrenees, between the Catholic pilgrimage shrine of Lourdes and Nay, the birthplace of the beret. It is nicknamed the “White House” by locals, partly because of Mr Bayrou’s pretensions from a young age to go into politics to “defend” the rural voiceless, like his farmer parents.

“I’m just a man of the countryside who’s read a few books in his life, who has a sense of the history of France … but who has never left the village where I was born. I’m a man who is proud to have toiled with his hands,” said Mr Bayrou, 55, when asked to explain his appeal. But the bookish Rudyard Kipling fan and biographer of the French king Henri IV told the Guardian he could be a cultural force on a par with François Mitterrand, able to champion huge arts projects for France.

The previous night, he addressed a rally in nearby Tarbes, and was cheered when he promised to put a brake on France’s spiralling debt. “In the climate of fear and mistrust in France, he is reassuring. He’s gentle, but firm,” said Ana Maria Marti, a local mother, who has attended his meetings for seven years. He has an air of the school-master that he once was.

France is wondering how “Bayroumania”, the surprise phenomenon of the election, will hold up during the five weeks until the first-round vote on April 22. Commentators question how he would unite a government as head of a party which currently has only around 30 members in the 577-strong national assembly. Detractors on the left warn that he is rightwing at heart and his plans for coalition government would paralyse France. Mr Sarkozy’s camp, disturbed by his rise, say he lacks concrete plans.

For many, Mr Bayrou is a protest vote against both the right and the left, but much of his potential support base comprises waverers.

Meanwhile, he is trying to reach out beyond the traditional intellectuals and the middle class with a pledge of “no empty promises”. In Tarbes, he made the unusual gesture of bringing his wife up on stage to stand beside him for his entire speech. Smiling shyly, in jeans, a T-shirt and jacket and with no make-up, she was a far cry from Sarkozy’s glamorous hopeful first lady, Cecilia.

In her kitchen, Mrs Bayrou, a former teacher, said she did not advise her husband on politics. “I’m not cut out for that, I’ll say if something is good or bad if I’m asked,” she said, adding that she was relieved that France did not have the “the kind of perpetual reality show” of politicians’ private lives in Britain.

Mr Bayrou vowed enigmatically to bring France a “calm and happy revolution”. In a flourish worthy of the contemporary philospher Jacques Derrida, he defined himself as a new political species: “I’m a reconstructionist”.

Full text of “Tractor-driving ’son of the soil’ ruffles election tactics of his French presidential rivals”, an article by Angelique Chrisafis published on the 19th March by The Guardian.

If you are curious about the current French Presidential campaign, and especially about the rise of François Bayrou, I reccommend the articles where Demian West describes the story so far with the eyes of a centrist sympathizer. This is of course a biased view, but it paints very well the hopes of a growing number of French voters with rising odds of handing the French politicians the surprise of their carreers.

First round of the elections is on the 22nd of April and I pledge to stop bothering you with politics fo a while after that…

Observers outside of France may wonder what is the story about François Bayrou. The centrist candidate has been patiently building up popular support for a while, mostly ignored by mainstream media. This popular support is now reaching critical mass and suddenly can’t be conveniently brushed aside anymore. The third man is the elephant in the bi-partisan room ! Articles about François Bayrou are now mushrooming in the press and an even better sign is that direct attacks against him are being more frequently mounted by other candidates.

If that sound like an interesting phenomenon to you, you may want to read “French Presidential Elections Turning Point“, the article Demian West has written at Agoravox, a leading site for French political commentary (don’t let the low activity of the English version fool you : the action is mostly on the French speaking side).

Demian West describes the story so far with the eyes of a centrist sympathizer. This is of course a biased view, but it paints very well the hopes of a growing number of French voters with rising odds of handing the French politicians the surprise of their carreers.

Since that article is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license I reproduce it here in its integrality.

“In the upcoming French Presidential Elections 2007, a huge upset surged in the medias and in the polls. Nobody could foresee the smashing increasing popularity of the candidate of the Centre Party UDF, the so-called “third man” François Bayrou. Last week-end, this change outbroke upon the whole mainstream of the media. Before the change, some of Bayrou’s contenders spoke easily about his “foolish poetry”, or about his “definitive non-existent policy”. As a matter of fact, right and left-wing contenders tried to ridiculise Bayrou, spreading out an image of the centrist party usually lowered by the media and politics head-quarters as a weakened go-between force. Thus traditionally, the Center Party should help and back the greatest right party Sarkozy’s UMP, but the center should never win.

In the meantime slowly but surely, the christian-democrat François Bayrou has moved the campaign at a new stake. Actually, silently he has built a Center Party which seems now totally free and independant. And, that’s the very reason he becomes suddenly a real threat for his two leading contenders Segolene and Sarkozy. Last week, Bayrou surged in the polls, gaining one more point per day, from 15 % to 16 % yesterday and 17% today, according to CSA. In fact, Sarko and Sego (the nickname of the bi-partism leaders) launched tough attacks against Bayrou the centrist leader. In some issues, the socialist candidate Segolene expressed frontly agressive and castigating speeches : “the center stays nowhere at all”, she said. But, one can see remaining residual and adventurous risk in this sort of tough behaviour in the political theater. Because, the socialist left-of-the-left trots’ and the right law-and-order Sarkozy both will need the whole transfer of the Bayrou supports and votes, which are the leading key to open the second round victory out of the ballot-box.

On the other hand, last days the polls announced that Bayrou should certainly win the elections against respectively Segolene or Sarko, in second round race. So, the crushing dilemma is : wether Sarkozy or Segolene could win some points by the bias of hard-criticism against the Centrist candidate ; on the contrary, they could lost one point for each dirty tricks against Bayrou. Because the french people do really show favour to the personality of Bayrou, who stands firmly as a hero between mythical agriculture and classical culture.

Howewer, the french people see Sarkozy as the symbol of the former policy unfresh and unattractive, whose supports are now declining. And Segolene Royal evokes some overwhelming stately figure of François Mitterrand the former socialist President, alike a blatant statue of a great Trotskyist Commandator throwing tormenting fear upon every don juanic frenchman. Nevertheless, the Bayrou’s model is Quinctius Cincinnatus, the republican roman farmer. In the early roman history, the Senate pleaded with Cincinnatus to assume political power and to save Rome. Then, within sixteen days he defeated the Aequi and the Volscians. Finally, he resignates absolute authority and he returns towards his fields as an humble ploughman. This classical gesture became the mythical “exemplum virtutis” or exemple of the best and highest moral virtue, who led french people towards French Revolution in the late XVIIIth century. More, Bayrou is a biographer of Henry the Fourth, the beloved king who reconciliate the Catholic Party with the Protestant rebellion, during the french Renaissance : as the modello of the National Unity.

Undoubtly we are at a turning point in the presidential race, when intimately the humane speech of Bayrou crushed down the huge media-machine of the two former leaders Sego-Sarko. According to the polls, the french people are waiting for some self-confidence in their own history and culture, as the very motor of a real political change. And therefore, they picked up great humane exemples in their rich past. Thus, they want to recover some revival of the “grandeur” of french spirit beyond economic difficulties. Finally, the presidential election seems to deal with some idea of recovering-hope. And the mainstream of reconciliation could flow out of that ballot-box in the center of this political drama”.

The Times of UK in its 21st February edition featured an article by Charles Bremner with a rather spectacular title : “President Bayrou of France” ! This article is part of the latest wave of articles by the foreign press who recognizes that something unusual and important is happening in France : a deep wave that has a chance to break the deadlock of French politics by imposing an open and pragmatic way to tackle issues. Here are an extract :

“When President Chirac was re-elected in 2002, Bayrou committed what looked like political suicide by refusing to merge the UDF with the Gaullists with whom it had long been junior partner. A majority of his MPs deserted for the new Union for a Popular Majority, Sarkozy’s party, and Bayrou turned the rump UDF into an anti-establishment force.

He recast himself as scourge of both government and Socialist opposition and the elite that runs France. Playing up his rural roots, the former cabinet minister has been crusading against an establishment that he likens to the absolute monarchy of the ancien regime. Sarko and Ségo, both senior members of the Paris elite, sing a similar song of course. But Bayrou has a better argument for casting himself as an outsider and he is also offering a consensual alternative to France’s permanent class war. He wants to “shatter the glass wall that divides the two clans” and create a government of national unity. His ideas sound sensible: reform education, cut spending and encourage business while also maintaining France’s cherished welfare state. To the fury of both the Sarkozistes and the Royalistes, he announced this week that as president, he would appoint a prime minister from the centre-left. The ideal, he said, would be a younger version of Jacques Delors, the former minister and EU Commission chief.

“You can’t do that”, they screamed from both big camps. Political reality excludes such fantasies. “Oh yes I can”, said Bayrou, pointing to Charles de Gaulle and other past leaders who appointed cross-party governments. To puncture the Bayrou bubble, Sarko and Ségo are now turning their guns on the mosquito who has got in the way of their showdown”.

In an article dated from the 21st Fbruary in dans The Gardian, Marcel Berlins bets that François Bayrou will be the next French President :

“Take my advice, immediately. Rush to your nearest betting shop and place a bet that the next president of France will be called François Bayrou, about whom you may not know much. Unfortunately, Messrs Ladbroke, William Hill and Paddy Power may be equally ignorant of M Bayrou and will refuse to take your bet, so you may have to treat it as a virtual wager. Never mind, it’s the thought that counts; and that thought should be to forget all about Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal and resign yourself to a French leader with even less charisma than the next British prime minister.

Here’s the reason. The polls show that, if Bayrou were to get into the second round of the presidential election, he would beat his opponent, whether Sarkozy or Royal, and on May 7 become Jacques Chirac’s successor. So Bayrou’s problem is to find a way of being runner-up in the first round. Until recently, that seemed impossible. The final looked like a certain contest between Sarko and Sego, destined to be close. That was until Royal decided to enter self-destruct mode, carelessly whittling away the public support she had gained in the early, heady days of her candidature.She will find it difficult to recover from the failure of her “100 promises” speech to inspire, followed by Monday evening’s performance on French television. I have seen only excerpts, but from everything I have been told and read there seems to be a consensus that – discounting the biased views of both her implacable enemies and her sycophantic supporters – she was reasonably relaxed, competent in presentation, and made no specific mistakes. But – and it is an essential but – she was not exciting, charismatic or possessed of obvious leadership qualities. She needed to be sparkling to revive her campaign and reverse her decline in popularity. She wasn’t.

Enter Bayrou, who has been patiently waiting for just such an opportunity. His ratings in public opinion polls has been rising quietly but significantly. Before Royal’s television appearance he had reached 16% for the first round on April 22, against her 23%. (Le Pen looks out of the running; his shock second place in the 2002 elections will not be repeated.) But Bayrou’s graph is on the up whereas Royal’s is sliding; the gap is far from unbridgeable. Moreover, if the polls keep showing that Royal will be easily beaten by Sarkozy in a run-off, I see a flight of socialists to Bayrou in the first round, to ensure that he makes the final, with an excellent chance of winning. The other day, a separate poll showed that 55% hoped that he would reach the second round.

He may not be well known abroad, but he has long been a fixture in French politics – leader of the third largest party in the national assembly, the centrist UDF (Union for French Democracy), a former minister for education and a candidate in the 2002 presidential elections; he came fourth. He is 55, from an agricultural background near the Pyrenees, has six children, loves and breeds horses, and has written several books, mainly on French history. His manner is usually subdued (though his speeches have recently acquired a more emphatic delivery), and his policies are worthy without any hint of excitement or great originality. He calls for a government of national unity; he is at his most impressive when castigating the political elite and the media for being out of touch with the people.

How could the French possibly elect someone they have found so uninspiring for so long? Easy. Because half the country hates Sarkozy, and the other half can’t stand Royal, or at least finds her unsuitable for the highest office. The election will be fought largely on the “Anyone but …” principle. My money says that the “anyone” will be Bayrou”.