The conventional wisdom says French President François Hollande will lose the country's next presidential race in 2017. He is the incumbent, he is unpopular, his record is at best mixed, he more often than not is hesitant, his party seems unable to close ranks, the left seems dispirited, there is strident social unrest in the country, and most of the Socialist heavyweights seem to be resigned and to be preparing for the 2022 presidential race. Of course, the odds are against Hollande. But he still has some good cards. First of all, he has a deep political culture: he knows the electoral map, the political history of his country, the tricks that have been tried and have worked, and the traps that must be avoided, and so on. Second, the economic outlook of France, while not bright, seems to be improving. Third, the Socialist Party, while divided, has a solid social basis and its last electoral performance surprised the pundits when it cut its losses and gained an honourable score. Most importantly, an election is about a choice between several candidates. Perhaps Hollande is not the ideal candidate, but a lot will depend on the other contenders. First of all, the more candidates there are, the more Hollande has the chance of making his way to the second round of the presidential race, where he will face either Marine Le Pen or the Republican Party candidate. Second, the Republicans seem to be oblivious to the fact that victory is not guaranteed, and internal wars for the big prize might turn out to be very costly indeed. The party's presidential primaries will be fiercely contested for many months, and it is safe to expect many nasty blows and maybe some scandals that will hurt the credibility of every serious contender, including the winner. Then the Republicans, never good tacticians, have to decide how to deal with such tricky issues as the country's economic agenda and identity politics, and the choices they make will be delicate and risky. Until now most potential candidates have focussed on economic issues, advocating more investment-friendly policies, but former president Nicolas Sarkozy returned last week to his old tactics of trying to outplay the extreme-right candidate Marine Le Pen on her own populist turf (it is noteworthy that she is eschewing the identity issue, for now). He seems to think he lost the last election because he did not use this trick more frequently. Others think the contrary is true. The two frontrunners for the Republican primaries are former prime minister Alain Juppé and Sarkozy. Juppé has consistently high scores in the polls; Sarkozy has a strong grip on the party apparatus and many political clients. Juppé, for now, is being discreet and is opting for a centrist approach. He could be a formidable contender, but his opponents will try to capitalise on his age (71), on his mediocre performance as prime minister under former president Jacques Chirac, and on his approach to cultural and social issues that the conservatives dislike. Nevertheless, Hollande clearly would prefer Sarkozy as an opponent. He is a rough figure who antagonises many people. A Sarkozy candidacy would almost certainly lead the centrist heavyweight François Bayrou, who hates him, to run for office — a move that may weaken the Republican right, at least for the crucial first round of the presidential elections. It should also be noted that any further terrorist attacks (unfortunately a real possibility) would probably strengthen both Hollande and extreme-right leader Le Pen. Last but not least, usually Socialist Party candidates in France have to find a way to placate the extreme left without alienating swing voters and potential voters from the right. This is a French feature: as the right is very diverse, there is a real possibility that a rightist political faction unhappy with the official choice of the right-wing forces will prefer to vote for the left candidate, as many of Chirac's voters did in 1981, preferring François Mitterrand as president to the then incumbent Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. But now the extreme left is in sharp decline: the centre-left labour unions are for the first time more popular than the leftist ones, and the extreme-left voters are either boycotting the elections or preferring other candidates, explaining why the extreme left is now so vociferous. As a result, the classic dilemma will be much easier to handle, and the president can focus on cajoling the centre-right. This does not mean Hollande does not face serious problems, some of them of his own making. He has to find a way to cut down to size some would-be Socialist candidates, among them his own young minister Emmanuel Macron. Hollande encouraged Macron to toy with the idea of running for office with the idea of playing him off against Prime Minister Manuel Valls. But the idea of a Macron candidacy has been so popular that the head of state has now to find a way to convince him to stay away without antagonising those who bet on him. Yes, the odds are against Hollande. But in France the polls have never successfully guessed the name of the next president 11 months before election day. So do not write him off just yet. The writer is a professor of international relations of the College de France and visiting professor at Cairo University.
