It is perhaps natural that the French should want change. The Gaullists, under Mr Sarkozy and his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, have held the presidency since 1995. Right across Europe in the euro-zone crisis, incumbents have been unseated by disgruntled voters. The French are fearful and restless and want something different. But the prospect of Mr Sarkozy’s defeat is still a remarkable one, in many ways. Unlike Mr Giscard d’Estaing, who had to run against Mr Chirac as well as facing Mitterrand, he has no centre-right rival. And he can reasonably claim to be the sort of authoritative leader to whom voters might turn in a crisis. Indeed, polls suggest the French rate Mr Sarkozy more highly than Mr Hollande for most traits to do with leadership. He scores better for having “the authority of a head of state” (54%, next to 23% for Mr Hollande), for being “capable of taking difficult decisions” (49 to 23%) and for being “capable of taking the right decisions faced with the current economic and financial crisis” (41 to 27%).

The French also recognise Mr Sarkozy’s energetic efforts during the euro crisis. He has pushed through unpopular reforms to universities and a rise in the retirement age. And he has a decent foreign-policy record, from taking France back into NATO’s military structure to his intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and his joint leadership of the campaign against Libya. Next to all this, Mr Hollande, a Socialist hack who led a fractious party for 11 years and has never had a ministerial job, is a debutant: his biggest crisis was a 2005 party split over the draft European Union constitution. With his friends from the Mitterrand era, there is little fresh about him.

(...)

The strain in the Sarkozy camp is beginning to show. A poll this week gave him only 24% in the first round, fully five points behind Mr Hollande. Not one poll has had Mr Sarkozy winning the second. On the far right, Marine Le Pen could well do better than polls suggest, and come in ahead of both the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the centrist François Bayrou, whose efforts to talk seriously about France’s dire public finances have won him little support.

It is perhaps natural that the French should want change. The Gaullists, under Mr Sarkozy and his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, have held the presidency since 1995. Right across Europe in the euro-zone crisis, incumbents have been unseated by disgruntled voters. The French are fearful and restless and want something different. But the prospect of Mr Sarkozy’s defeat is still a remarkable one, in many ways. Unlike Mr Giscard d’Estaing, who had to run against Mr Chirac as well as facing Mitterrand, he has no centre-right rival. And he can reasonably claim to be the sort of authoritative leader to whom voters might turn in a crisis. Indeed, polls suggest the French rate Mr Sarkozy more highly than Mr Hollande for most traits to do with leadership. He scores better for having “the authority of a head of state” (54%, next to 23% for Mr Hollande), for being “capable of taking difficult decisions” (49 to 23%) and for being “capable of taking the right decisions faced with the current economic and financial crisis” (41 to 27%).

The French also recognise Mr Sarkozy’s energetic efforts during the euro crisis. He has pushed through unpopular reforms to universities and a rise in the retirement age. And he has a decent foreign-policy record, from taking France back into NATO’s military structure to his intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and his joint leadership of the campaign against Libya. Next to all this, Mr Hollande, a Socialist hack who led a fractious party for 11 years and has never had a ministerial job, is a debutant: his biggest crisis was a 2005 party split over the draft European Union constitution. With his friends from the Mitterrand era, there is little fresh about him.

(...)

The strain in the Sarkozy camp is beginning to show. A poll this week gave him only 24% in the first round, fully five points behind Mr Hollande. Not one poll has had Mr Sarkozy winning the second. On the far right, Marine Le Pen could well do better than polls suggest, and come in ahead of both the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the centrist François Bayrou, whose efforts to talk seriously about France’s dire public finances have won him little support.

It is perhaps natural that the French should want change. The Gaullists, under Mr Sarkozy and his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, have held the presidency since 1995. Right across Europe in the euro-zone crisis, incumbents have been unseated by disgruntled voters. The French are fearful and restless and want something different. But the prospect of Mr Sarkozy’s defeat is still a remarkable one, in many ways. Unlike Mr Giscard d’Estaing, who had to run against Mr Chirac as well as facing Mitterrand, he has no centre-right rival. And he can reasonably claim to be the sort of authoritative leader to whom voters might turn in a crisis. Indeed, polls suggest the French rate Mr Sarkozy more highly than Mr Hollande for most traits to do with leadership. He scores better for having “the authority of a head of state” (54%, next to 23% for Mr Hollande), for being “capable of taking difficult decisions” (49 to 23%) and for being “capable of taking the right decisions faced with the current economic and financial crisis” (41 to 27%).

The French also recognise Mr Sarkozy’s energetic efforts during the euro crisis. He has pushed through unpopular reforms to universities and a rise in the retirement age. And he has a decent foreign-policy record, from taking France back into NATO’s military structure to his intervention in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war and his joint leadership of the campaign against Libya. Next to all this, Mr Hollande, a Socialist hack who led a fractious party for 11 years and has never had a ministerial job, is a debutant: his biggest crisis was a 2005 party split over the draft European Union constitution. With his friends from the Mitterrand era, there is little fresh about him.

(...)

The strain in the Sarkozy camp is beginning to show. A poll this week gave him only 24% in the first round, fully five points behind Mr Hollande. Not one poll has had Mr Sarkozy winning the second. On the far right, Marine Le Pen could well do better than polls suggest, and come in ahead of both the Communist-backed Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the centrist François Bayrou, whose efforts to talk seriously about France’s dire public finances have won him little support.