FRANCE: The French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, had thought he would pick the right-wing presidential nomination like a ripe fruit from a tree at the UMP party congress next January 14th.
He is still far ahead of other right-wing contenders, and is running neck-and-neck with the socialist Ségolène Royal in opinion polls. But over the past week, Mr Sarkozy was so shaken by resistance from the Chiraco-Villepiniste camp that he shut himself away for an entire day with a migraine headache and modified his strategy in a speech on Thursday night.
Though they are all part of the UMP party which Mr Sarkozy hijacked two years ago, President Jacques Chirac, prime minister Dominique de Villepin, defence minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, speaker of the National Assembly Jean-Louis Debré and roughly one-third of the cabinet have never warmed to a Sarkozy candidacy.
Relations between the two camps are so tense that government breakfasts which used to last an hour now take 15 minutes. After an anonymous cabinet minister told Libération newspaper: "Faced with Nicolas Sarkozy, I shall vote for Ségolène Royal. Without hesitation." Mr Sarkozy launched an investigation to identify the guilty party.
Mr Sarkozy thought last spring's "first job contract" debacle and the subsequent Clearstream smear scandal had destroyed Mr de Villepin. "You should have killed him when you had him in your sights, before the summer," one of Mr Sarkozy's aides told him this week, according to Le Figaro.
Now the prime minister is making a modest comeback in opinion polls, and systematically opposes Mr Sarkozy on domestic and foreign policy issues. Their latest battle started on October 8th, when Mr de Villepin asserted that the purpose of the January 14th congress was "not the investiture of a candidate" but to confer financial support. "If others had the feeling they could play a role, that they could commit themselves, well this could be their choice," Mr de Villepin said.
Mr Sarkozy vented his anger on France Info radio the next day. If Villepin wants to be a candidate, he snapped, "Let him say so." Mr Sarkozy fears his candidacy will be undermined if another UMP politician goes it alone, outside the party. "Anyone who has something to say, who wants to offer an alternative, should have the courage to do so," he continued. "But it must happen inside the UMP, not outside."
Mr de Villepin reportedly still harbours hopes of becoming a candidate, circumstances permitting. In the meantime, he is promoting Ms Alliot-Marie (known as MAM), as an alternative to "Sarko". This week, Mr de Villepin praised the defence minister as "a woman of great talent, who has shown her abilities in government". Ms Alliot-Marie is founding her own political association, offices and all, with the Gaullien name le chêne (the oak). But it was MAM's interview with Le Figaro this week that set alarm bells ringing in Sarkoland. "Many militants ask me to be a candidate, or tell me I'm the only one who can beat Ségolène Royal," the defence minister said. As for the financial support to be conferred by the party congress, "It's not indispensable." she added.
The Chiraco-Villepinistes portray Mr Sarkozy as egocentric, impulsive, volatile, dangerous and pro-American. They were delighted when the satirical weekly Canard enchâiné reported at the end of September that he had insulted police commissioners in the Seine-Saint-Denis department north of Paris, calling them crétins, connards and incapables.
At a 4,000-strong rally in Périgueux on Thursday night, Mr Sarkozy warned de Villepin and Alliot-Marie: "I will not let victory be stolen by meaningless division." Instead of talking about his favourite theme - rupture with more than a decade of Chirac rule - he struck an unprecedented, almost socialist pose, advocating state guarantees for loans for the poor and chronically ill, male-female parity on the boards of state-owned companies and the right to housing and child care.
But Mr Sarkozy received the loudest applause when he reverted to his staple theme of immigration. France "doesn't want people settling here without respecting her laws, her traditions, her values", he said. "She doesn't want those who don't respect her, those who don't love her. Nor will France disown two thousand years of Christianity, two thousands years of civilisation, of spiritual values."