(Hardcore political frontists find Sarko soft on Muslims, and in any case hate anyone associated with Chirac and Gaullism... historical rancour going back to Vichy... it does not apply to the UDF and the Giscard tradition, which always had bridges with the Xtreme right...)
I think everyone should vote Bayrou in the first round. You know, he's the one who's going up in the polls... ;)
This is always something that has baffled me -- the presence of folks like Longuet or even more so de Villiers in the old UDF. Villiers, IIRC, ran Barre's campaign in 88.
So I've always wondered, was it the old PRI (with its wierd alliance of libertarianism, Coriscan mob, and 68-vintage street fighters) that had ties to the far right (by which I mean not today's watered-down FN but the hard-core Tixier and OAS folks) or did the UDF include new right nationalists as part of the "anti-Delmas" cum "anti-Chirac" rationale that was what brought the UDF together in the first place.
Anyway, I do think in his defense (and I could be wrong) that Bayrou and the old Christian Democrat tradition from which he came, has pretty clean hands with respect to the Front (as opposed to the rest of the right which at various times has sought alliances with LePen...)
Afaik, of the different strands of the UDF, neither the Christian Dems nor the Radicals (Valoisiens) had ties to the extreme right. These were to be found more among the CNIP (Centre National des Indépendents et Paysans), then the Républicains Indépendents, which operated as a way into "respectable" politics for 1960s fascist street-fighters like the co-founders of Occident, Alain Madelin, Gérard Longuet, Claude Goasguen, Patrick Devedjian. These have now joined the UMP, and are Sarko supporters. I don't know for sure, but I imagine they're seen as opportunists by those who stayed out on the fringe and built the FN.
