Hollande Prepares Battle for Round 2 of the Presidential Election

By Le Figaro

The key phrase for Socialist François Hollande's campaign between the two rounds of the French election will be "bringing people together."

Yesterday was the first round of the French presidential election. Socialist François Hollande came in first place, with UMP candidate and current president Nicolas Sarkozy finishing right behind him. The second round of the election-- the run-off between the two candidates-- will be held in two weeks.

Hollande had envisioned "numerous different scenarios" for the second round of the French election. A few hours before his campaign officially ended, Hollande even described a few of these: his "black scenario" would come into play if Le Pen and Sarkozy earned better-than-expected scores, his "grey scenario" would come into play if the results were close and the "pink scenario" would come into play in case of a clear, if not emphatic, victory for the Left. 

Ultimately, the plan of action will be pink-grey. François Hollande arrived in first place on Sunday. Beating Nicolas Sarkozy, Hollande will thus begin the second round campaign as the election favorite.

The Left earned a higher score yesterday than it did in the first round of the last presidential election. Last time, in 2007, the Left earned 36% of votes. This time, it earned 44%. Yet radical Left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon earned a much lower score than predicted. That means that he is less of a threat to Hollande's campaign... but it also means that Hollande has a much smaller reserve of Left votes to call on in the second round. 

But what really complicates matters is the good score of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen of the Front national. 

The Socialist candidate still counts on being carried towards the presidency by the wave of anti-Sarkozy sentiment that has structured his campaign since the very beginning. Within the Socialist Party, no one thinks this strong tendency will be reversed in the next fifteen days. "Sarkozy's re-election would be incongruous," said a close confident of the Socialist candidate. 

The campaign between the rounds

Now, the Socialist Party will have to organize the campaign in between the two rounds. Almost superstitiously, François Hollande had previously refused to even broach the subject. He simply wanted to get over the first step of the election. That said, for practical reasons, several trips had already been organized for this week. The Socialists had also started to plan Hollande's final rally, which will be held in a Paris stadium on May 3rd.

But outside of these rallies with his supporters, François Hollande will also have to face his rival in several debates, which will be broadcasted live on major television channels. The Socialist candidate has remained very evasive on his preparations for these debates."We have DVDs of the last presidential debates, but I haven't watched them yet," Hollande said recently. "I mean, I do know them."

But the biggest questions that remain are how Sarkozy will construct his stance. During the 2007 election, he won the first round. This time, the scenario is different."In 2007, he knew he had won and it was Ségolène Royal who had to attack him and she had trouble with that," Hollande noted.

This time, it will be Nicolas Sarkozy on the attack. 

Hollande, who has already faced off with Sarkozy in televised debates four times, awaits this challenge with confidence.