3) Structural problems I see include:
a) the failures of some on the left to engage a constituency who are being excluded economically. Many of them are not as concerned with immigration as Le Pen, but it seems only he is engaging with them about their economic decline.
b) There is still no compact (as evidenced by the Le Pen-Chirac second round) that unites many factions.
4) Bayrou may yet rattle Sarkozy, which would be good for democracy even if it doesn't end up helping Sego. Someone has to get in the way of this media snowball. If they do not, I fear Sarko is going to get in and be given a "media mandate" to deeply change France on a "business" blueprint.
If that's what the people want, then fair enough, but seeing random interviews on UK TV with people who watched "Sego's big performance" and pronounced themselves "unconvinced" and "disappointed" with her, it's not at all clear to me that people understand the deeply corporation centric things Sarko wants to do.
2). That may yet happen. The divisions that can be felt now are no longer on the oui/non line-up, which at least is progress.
3). Engaging the excluded. No one is really doing that. Le Pen gives some unhappy people illusions (his economic "programme" is so astoundingly liberal they would be very unhappy indeed). The terrible thing to say is that the excluded don't decide elections.
b) I don't quite get the point about a compact. Which factions?
4) I wish Royal and the Socialists would shape up and get a good fight going against the media. It would take both because the party can bring in some weight and experience, and she can still provide a fresh image if she adapts her communication to the changing conditions of the campaign. Meanwhile, Bayrou is having a good whack at media bias (except of course he makes out it's in favour of both major candidates, which is fair enough, it's his game to be the honest little guy squeezed in the middle).
