France: Lara Marlowereports from Bordeaux on the epic mayoral election campaign of a French political veteran.
Politics can be a cruel profession. No one knows that better than Alain Juppé, the former prime minister and mayor of Bordeaux who is defending his last political office in nationwide municipal elections on March 9th and 16th.
Juppé holds the most prestigious degrees and titles conferred by the French republic: normalien, agrégé de lettres, énarque, inspecteur de finances . . . When he was foreign minister in the early 1990s, Jacques Chirac called him "the best among us".
"That didn't please everyone," Juppé sighs over coffee in an open-air market where he is canvassing. For nearly 30 years, he was Chirac's protege and righthand man. Many expected Juppé to become president.
But a combination of dodgy financial practices on the French right, bad luck, and fate in the form of Nicolas Sarkozy scuppered his chances.
Several Juppé quotes entered the folklore of modern French political history. In 1995 the satirical weekly Canard Enchaînérevealed that Paris City Hall, where Juppé was number three during Chirac's long stint as mayor, rented luxury apartments to him and his sons for a pittance. Juppé announced on television that he was " droit dans mes bottes" (tall in the saddle), but moved house shortly after.
Juppé's reputation for cold arrogance has been his greatest political handicap. "The French think they're more intelligent than everyone else; the problem is always the others, never them," says a doctor in Bordeaux. "Juppé personifies that characteristic."
The image is unfair, protests Alain Juppé. "People who know me know I'm not like that," he says. "I'm not going to endlessly fight the stereotypes that stick to me. People like me or they don't. For me, the time for psychoanalysis is over."
As Chirac's prime minister, Juppé attempted to enact reforms similar to those now espoused by Sarkozy, and was run out of office for it.
On behalf of Chirac, he founded the UMP party in 2002, only to see it seized by Sarkozy two years later. Also in 2004, a court held Juppé responsible for corrupt party financing during Chirac's years at Paris's town hall, for which Juppé was sentenced to one year's ineligibility for public office. He is widely assumed to have sacrificed himself for Chirac.
Juppé went into exile for a year in Quebec, returned to Bordeaux and won back the mayor's office with 56 per cent of the vote in a byelection. It was, he wrote in his blog, "the most beautiful day of my life".
Yet last June, he was rejected by the same Bordeaux voters in the legislative election.
Sarkozy had declared that any minister who lost his seat would resign. It may have been a deliberate ploy to eliminate the last Chiraquien in government, and Sarkozy's only potential rival on the right. At the time, Juppé was in charge of a "super ministry" for the environment, transport and industry, with the status of deputy prime minister.
"You'd be happy if I died!" the embittered losing candidate taunted journalists when he was defeated.
Unlike Michael McDowell, who withdrew from Irish politics just two weeks earlier in similar circumstances, Juppé clung to his last position as mayor of Bordeaux. In most western democracies, politicians return to other professions when they leave office. In France, they hang on. An old joke caricatures their longevity thus: "I'll be a deputy in the National Assembly until I die, and after my death I'll become a senator!"
The French writer Philippe Sollers has called Bordeaux " la France moisie" - mouldy France. With a population of 230,000, this conservative, insular city which prospered from trade in wine and slaves seems a small fiefdom for the frustrated ambitions of Juppé. That argument is used by his rival for the mayor's office, the socialist Alain Rousset.
"He gives the impression he's bored," says Rousset. "He'd be better as an EU commissioner, minister of foreign affairs, or a grand diplomat representing France at the UN."
Yet a volunteer on Rousset's staff says the Bordelais are impressed with Juppé's national stature. "They care a lot about the facade, the image. They like things that shine, and Juppé shines."
As mayor for most of the past 13 years, Juppé's most popular achievements have been restoring the city's elegant 18th century buildings, and installing 45km of tram lines, with Alstom trains like the Luas in Dublin.
A recent opinion poll credits him with 52 per cent of the vote in the first round, against 39 per cent for Rousset. Most of the Bordelais I talked to said they would vote for him, because he works hard and has improved the city.
"The two Alains," as Juppé and Rousset are known here, curiously resemble each other. Both sport the same bald pate and wear similar suits, ties and leather coats. "When they're angry, they have the same tight-lipped grimace," says the volunteer on Rousset's staff.
Rousset talks more about low income housing and social programmes, but little of substance separates the candidates.
Political symbolism is the main thing at stake. "If I win, the founder of the [ruling party] UMP will have been beaten," says Rousset. "And a city that has been ruled by the right for 61 years will fall to the left."
The greatest danger to Juppé is, yet again, Nicolas Sarkozy. The president's approval rating is in free-fall and his entourage fear the UMP will take a beating at the polls next month.
In the hope of fending off disaster, Sarkozy has been acting like Father Christmas. He recently restored the Pentecost Monday bank holiday, gave a €200 bonus to old age pensioners and backtracked on the mere suggestion of liberalising the taxi industry.
By forcing Juppé to leave government last year, Sarkozy may have saved him. "The best among us" never mentions Sarkozy's name, and constantly repeats that the municipal election is "local". Reflecting disenchantment with France's main political parties, neither the founder of the UMP nor his socialist rival use their party symbols on campaign posters.