Issue 80, 2nd April 2007

50%+ of French Voters Still Undecided.
By Lolo Laroche in Paris

Recent opinion polls give Nicolas Sarkozy, the French right wing candidate a 2 to 5% lead in the coming French elections, however the majority of the population say they could still change their minds about who to vote for.

Analysts from the political parties are out combing the streets in an attempt to find out just why so many voters are still so undecided, and are constantly modifying their strategies in an attempt to change voters minds. But, as our own BIGfib investigation reveals, it may be those very attempts  to match policy to the public desire which is causing the problem.

Pierre Tresvert told BIGfib that his main issue in choosing who to vote for is having a government who respects the environment, promotes renewable energy and  promises not to build new nuclear power stations.
"I will decide who to vote for on election day," he told BIGfib. "I was going to vote for Segolene Royal but then she said she was in favour of nuclear power so I changed my mind, but then she changed her mind and said she was against it, so I decided to vote for her. But then she said she would decide after the election so I may have to decide who to vote for after the election too."

Laurant Cestpourlavie is hoping for gay marriage to be legalised and is having similiar problems with the socialist candidate. "Segolene Royal is known to be Catholic and spoke openly against gay marriage, but now she's in favour, so I'm kind of torn between voting for Sarkozy - who is against gay marriage but in favour of improved civil partnerships - and at least isn't Catholic, or Segolene Royal who says she is in favour of gay marriage today, but might not be next week, if she chats to the pope for instance.

Amandine Babacool told BIGfib - "I want to vote for the socialists, but I'm waiting to see if Segolene Royal turns out to be a socialist or  not. A few weeks ago she was socialist, but then she became a liberal capitalist, and a few days ago, when she started on about military training camps for adolescents she sounded more like Margaret Thatcher. It's very hard."

Finally Stephane Argentquicompte always votes for the right, but even he is hesitating this time. "I'm not sure whether to vote for Francois Barou or Nicolas Sarkozy," he told BIGfib. "I always vote for the mainstream rightwing party, but with Nicolas Sarkozy pretending to be a fascist and Francois Bayrou claiming to be right wing Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and a Socialist on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at weekends, it's very hard to decide. I think what I will do is wait see what day the election falls. If it's on a weekday then, probability is that Bayrou will get my vote."



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