An extremely popular
woman will represent the French left in next year’s presidential election, the centre-
right must ask:
does it take a
woman to beat one? Nicolas Sarkozy regards himself as the best candidate to succeed Jacques Chirac, but the divided Gaullists have family ideas. Michele Alliot-Marie, MAM, likes riding horses and skiing in the Alps, this penchant for living dangerously could result in her running against Sarkozy. MAM has one important advantage over the Hungarian immigrant’s son, her gender. MAM is quoted as saying ‘The emergence of Segolene Royal has demonstrated that it is very difficult for a man to attack a woman’. Royal’s popularity rose every time she was attacked during the Socialist
party campaign, she is seen as a champion of renewal. Sarkozy was expected to stand unchallenged on 14th January when the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) chooses its candidate in a ballot of 300,000 members. Dominique de Villepin, the unpopular prime minister, says he might run against ‘the dwarf’, his sobriquet for the diminutive Sarkozy. Chirac, the most unpopular president in the 48 years of the 5th republic may present himself for re-election.Alliot-Marie, a protégé of Chirac’s, rose quickly through the Gaullist ranks with an instinctive understanding of how to humour the party’s ‘elephants,’ ‘I stroked their trunks’. She certainly gained the respect and admiration of the armed forces since she was appointed defence minister in 2002, bringing glamour to the role with her trouser suits and cashmere scarves.Alliot-Marie has a long way to go to catch up with Sarkozy who has the support of 77% of Gaullist supporters, de Villepin has only 6%, yet Alliot-Marie has 17% and she has not started campaigning! Alliot-Marie is the daughter of a former international rugby referee and presents herself as a guardian of the mainstream right’s values against Sarkozy’s commitment to market economic reforms. Alliot-Marie is considering running as an independent, side-stepping the centre-right vote in January, resulting in an encounter between a man and the people or a woman!