A considerable portion of the French people will watch a televised debate tonight between their president, Nicolas Sarkozy, a candidate for a second term, and his competitor from the Socialist Party, Francois Hollande. It is a significant debate because both men will try to make great efforts to be the better candidate, a few days before the elections on Sunday. However, the debate will not be decisive for either candidate, since the supporters of the ruling right and the Socialists will tune in, each convinced that their candidate is better. As for the supporters of the extreme right, represented by the Marine Le Pen-led National Front, they settled their election stance yesterday, in favor of Hollande, even though Le Pen said she will cast a blank ballot, and that Sarkozy is an enduring disappointment, while Hollande is the false hope. Voting with a blank ballot helps candidate Hollande, who has guaranteed his victory on Sunday. Hollande gave a speech yesterday at a commemoration for the former Socialist prime minister, Pierre Beregovoy, who committed suicide during the Mitterand era. Hollande made several references to Mitterand and his 1981 victory against the president who tried unsuccessfully to win a second term, Valerie Giscard d'Estaing. Speaking in a presidential tone, Hollande said he wanted to bring the French and their interests together and remove religion and sects from political discourse. Sarkozy, meanwhile, held a large electoral rally yesterday on the occasion of Labor Day. He still believes, according to those close to him, that he can win, because 20 percent of voters are undecided, while some of Le Pen's voters will vote for him. However, he needs more than 70 percent of the votes of all undecided voters and Le Pen supporters to win, and this is not possible. If Hollande wins on Sunday, as is expected, he will first demonstrate his skill within the Socialist Party, which misestimated his credentials. In the past, the party preferred Dominique Strauss-Kahn, with his sexual scandals, or Segolene Royal. Holland's expected victory will also show that many of those who supported Sarkozy, and even the wealthy such as the famous businessman Francois Pinault, who is close to former President Jacques Chirac, have turned to Sarkozy's rival. If all of the opinion polls are proved right on Sunday, with Hollande's victory, Sarkozy's personality will have played the largest role in his defeat. His mercurial nature, poor behavior and inability to control his sharp temperament, as well as his failure to adhere to the personal traditions of the president, as perceived by the public, are key elements in his loss of popularity among those who supported him in 2007. In addition, the huge economic crisis, growing unemployment and deteriorating purchasing power have also helped. If Sarkozy had not run for a second term, and had his party organized primaries to select either Foreign Minister Alain Juppe or Prime Minister Francois Fillon as a candidate, it could have obtained a second term for the right, despite the economic crisis and unemployment, because the personality of either Juppe or Fillon would give more momentum for the competition with the Socialist candidate. Hollande's slogan is "Change is now," but there is fear that change will take place in June, if Le Pen's aspiration to obtain a large bloc of MPs in legislative elections, to become the leader of the right-wing opposition, comes true. This will truly change France's face of openness, republican values and tolerance. The president who wins Sunday will be forced, if Le Pen's ambition is realized, to take into consideration the views of the National Front in French political life, such as halting immigration and allaying fears about the spread of Islamic traditions, which they criticize for having changed the face of France.
