French Candidates Seek Centrist Vote

By Elaine Sciolino New York Times News Service

PARIS — The French presidential race is on — for the vote of the center.

The campaign entered a new phase on Monday, as the winners of the first round, Nicolas Sarkozy on the right and Segolene Royal on the left, began a battle for the 6.8 million voters who chose the path down the middle.

Taken together, the two winners scooped up 57 percent of the vote in the first round on Sunday. But Francois Bayrou, the parliamentary deputy and farmer who heads the centrist Union for French Democracy, came in a strong third with more than 18 percent of the vote, and those votes are up for grabs.

“The voters of the center control the election,” said Stephane Rozes, a director of the CSA polling institute. “The challenge is not knowing where they will go.”

At a rally in the city of Dijon, in eastern France, on Monday, Sarkozy set aside his law-and-order persona and portrayed himself as “the candidate of openness” whose message was for “all the French people.”

“Openness of spirit is being able to take into consideration the positions of others, the ability to think that others might be right,” he said.

Royal, who had rejected proposals from fellow Socialists to join forces with Bayrou before the first round, reached out to him across party lines to say she was ready for a dialogue.

“It is my responsibility to make this overture,” she said at a rally in the city of Valence, in southern France. “I’m awaiting a response.”

She added that she was “launching an appeal beyond the left to all” who denounced the system during the campaign.

But Bayrou said on Sunday night that he would not endorse either candidate at the moment.

“If you listened carefully to what I said earlier, you’ll see I want to keep my independence,” he told reporters.

He was upbeat in his concession speech on Sunday night, insisting that his message of conciliation instead of traditional party infighting had resonated among voters. “There is finally a center in France, a large center, a strong center, an independent center capable of speaking and acting beyond previous borders,” he said.

Bayrou’s camp knows its potential power. “We own them,” said a Bayrou aide, referring to Sarkozy and Royal. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because Bayrou had not yet announced his intentions.

But Marielle de Sarnez, Bayrou’s campaign director, made clear that Bayrou would not compromise his core values for promises by either candidate. “One thing is sure,” she was quoted as saying Monday in the daily Le Parisien. “We are not for sale!”

(c) 2007 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.