France's presidential race remains wide open two months before the election, with Socialist Segolene Royal apparently rebounding and a dark-horse centrist candidate slowly but surely becoming a serious contender, a new poll published Wednesday suggested.Nicolas Sarkozy, the main candidate on the right -- proposing tax cuts and labor reforms as remedies for France's sluggish economy -- still emerged as the narrow winner in the sounding of 884 people by pollsters CSA. The survey gave no margin of error. But Royal's steady if not dazzling performance on a prime-time question-and-answer TV talk show on Monday appears to have injected new life into her campaign.
It had seemed about to implode after a series of missteps on foreign affairs and scrutiny over the eventual costs to France of her promises to raise the minimum wage, guarantee job training for unemployed youths and other measures for a "fairer" society. Royal insisted on the show that France is ready for its first woman president and that she is up to the task -- rebutting critics who say that she -- a former environment, schools and family minister -- lacks experience in the most senior government posts and so is unsuitable. Royal showed particular compassion to a wheelchair-bound questioner, and newspaper Le Monde the next day dubbed her the "candidate-mother" of French politics.The new poll, conducted after the broadcast attracted an estimated 8.9 million viewers, had Royal closing the gap on Sarkozy and even besting him in the first round of the two-round election. According to Le Parisien daily, which commissioned the poll with news channel I-Tele, 29 percent of respondents said they were most likely to vote for Royal on April 22, up two points from last week, compared with 28 percent for Sarkozy, down five points.
Dozens of would-be presidential hopefuls are working to get the signatures of 500 elected officials, usually mayors, that they need to register their candidacy. A record 16 candidates stood in 2002 and the first-round vote whittles the field to just two. If the duel on May 6 pits Sarkozy against Royal, 51 percent of respondents said they would likely vote for him, down four points from last week, against 49 percent for her, up four points. Polls of recent weeks have always put Sarkozy one or more steps ahead. But they also have exploded as myth the notion that this would be a purely two-horse contest between him and Royal.