Paris:
Nicolas Sarkozy is making a bid for a second term but the French now find his "hyper president" style too aggressive. His reputation as a pro-rich President has been dragging him down. Mr Sarkozy celebrated his last election victory in 2007 in a posh restaurant on the Champs Elysées in Paris with his rich friends. That was his first faux pas. He then took a holiday break in the Mediterranean on a yacht borrowed from a billionaire friend, Vincent Bolloré and the French didn't like that either. He raised his own salary when he came to office and that made people suspicious. His courting of Carla Bruni on their Egyptian holiday was too much of showing off of private life - something the French do not approve of. During this election campaign, he apologised to his voters. In a recent rally he said, "I've made mistakes but I've always tried to be fair, to be sincere, and to give all I could, all I could, even when personal sufferings were there." But the damage is already done.
"Rich" has become a dirty word in French politics more than it was ever before. "The excesses of the financial world of the past decade have made the hyper rich very unpopular and they're being held responsible for the crisis Europe is going through and Sarkozy is the paying the price for this" says Pierre Haski, leading French commentator and founder of news website Rue89.
This financial gloom has made the French more cynical than ever before. They have traditionally been anti-globalisation and they have never before felt more vindicated. That does not change the fact of course, that France has more companies in the Fortune 500 than any other European country. But this time the anti-capitalist wave has hit the presidential campaign like a giant tsunami.
Nicholas Dupont Aignan, of the Eurosceptic party (Arise the Republic) was recently getting grilled by 4 journalists simultaneously on a tv show. He dared them to reveal their salaries on air. In the altercation that followed, the journalists didn't reveal, what according to Dupont Aignan were their "extravagant" earnings. Radical left candidate Nathalie Arthaud (Workers' Struggle) says she is fighting against "the rich and powerful who get away with anything and everything." She wants to ban companies from laying off employees. Jacques Cheminade (Solidarity & Progress) wants to get rid of "financial predators" and another candidate Philippe Poutou's party's name says it all - "Vote for Anti-Capitalism". Of the more serious contenders, Jean Luc Melenchon, of the far left coalition (Left Front) wants a 100% tax on those who earn more than 360,000 Euro a year and Francois Hollande himself wants to tax those with "indecent earnings" with a 75% tax. Clearly, the "bling bling" president who raised his salary by 170% when he came to power, is in big trouble.
Whether on the Left, Right or Centre, all candidates have protectionist proposals in their manifestos, a return to "Made in France". Francois Bayrou of the Centrist party (Democratic Movement) has a "Made in France" manifesto which is milder that far candidate Marine Le Pen's more radical idea of pulling out of European Union and returning to France.
The north of France is dotted with ruins of factories or plants that are facing shutdowns. The partially closed Arcelor-Mittal site at Florange has become the symbol of France's ailing industry. It is now the unfortunate mascot of all delocalisation that has hit French exports hard leading to a trade deficit of 70 billion euros. Unionists, who'd like to see Mr Hollande take over, have been protesting throughout the presidential campaign, holding Mr Sarkozy responsible for failing to protect workers and siding with the rich. Recently, 20 workers walked 300 km to Paris and were welcomed at Mr Hollande's giant rally at Chateau de Vincennes.
Mr Sarkozy has been saying he has "saved" France from ending up like Greece, Spain and Italy. He says he got France's public deficit down from 5.7% to 5.2% of GDP. He would also like his voters to believe that along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel they found a "solution" for the Greek crisis. But the left leaning candidates want to break the "Merkozy axis". Hollande on the other hand says his main adversary is the world of finance and that he wants to slap a heavy tax on the hyper rich. He also wants to renegotiate the European fiscal treaty.
Those who oppose Mr Hollande, have been threatening, that if he wins it would lead to disaster for the French economy. They believe there will be trouble over France and Germany finding enough common ground to tackle the Eurozone crisis together. But for many others Mr Hollande's propositions are a breath of fresh air. A group of forty economists recently came up to say they back Mr Hollande's proposals. How he will convince the rest of Europe to steer away from spending cuts and what measures he will take to spur growth is still not very clear. For the time being the Sarkozy camp has been warning that panic will hit the markets if Francois Hollande wins. But that could also just be the panic of losing this election speaking.