are ... are ... are gutless idiots who don't even dare to be openly right-wingers?

That's what worries me. They leave an open field to be Le Pen and friends.

Instead of having a clean hard-left, center-left, center-right and hard-right configuration, French politics have an uterly bizarre configuration on the left with a PS which tries to be a jack-of-all-trades and a center of gravity on the right which is too far on the right with a very weak center-right but not enough presence to the hard right to block authoritarians.

Instead of 4 well-defined peaks on the ideological axis and 3 possible coalitions, you have only 2 contorted blobs but without the benefit of a winner-takes-all electoral system à la American, which locks off marginal groups and forces them back in the mainstream parties.

My worries are compounded by what I hear around me: a lot of people who used to be center left, moving towards authoritarian positions out of frustration. The CPE debacle is reinforcing their views (by "proving" that it's not possible to "reform"). And I think Sarkozy shot his strongman creds at a large degree with those electors by playing against Villepin and advocating for withdrawal.

It may lead to a very dispersed situation in 2007, even worse than 2002.