The French are not ones for quick political soundbites, no sir, which we did mention before. The debate last night proves that a politician needs real staying power under the French TV lights in order to make his mark. This much heralded debate lasted 2hrs and 50 minutes and was shown on at least 5 TV stations at peak time. Many TV stations were given over to it all night...with pre-match build up and after match analysis.
It was chaired by the anchors from TF1 and France2.
Hollande looked a bit nervous to begin with, he started it off, the point being he had it all to lose...being so far ahead in the polls. They sat across the table from one another, no lecterns, no audience, just grinding politics for nigh on 3 hours...with the two TV presenters, one female, one male, in between. Yet despite this grinding longevity, which you would think might put people off politics for life, not a bit of it..in fact on the contrary France gets massive turnouts on polling days.
Sarkozy performed in his usual style, with lots of arched shoulders and waving arms, but he failed to score any kind of knockout blow. My feeling is that the polls will remain the same today and still much in Hollande's favour .
If Hollande wins, and its looking that way as we said, it will shake up the EU with its standard approach to austerity . Hollande is one for responsibility in finance but not a believer in austerity measures on anything like the same scale as is the current vogue. Polling day is this coming sunday.