ANALYSIS: RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC, Paris Correspondent
IN AN office in the Élysée Palace, a small steering group has been working away quietly for months on plans for Nicolas Sarkozy's re-election campaign.
When news of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York reached Paris last Sunday, the bulk of those plans might as well have been thrown in the bin.
The small team, led by agriculture minister Bruno Le Maire and a number of advisers, had spent months poring over Strauss-Kahn's speeches and public comments as head of the International Monetary Fund, stockpiling ammunition that would allow the right show voters how his positions diverged from those of his party.
With Strauss-Kahn now highly unlikely to contest the Socialist Party (PS) primary he was the favourite to win, most assumptions about next year's election are quickly being revised.
Sarkozy has retained a studied public silence since he learned of DSK's arrest. He has instructed ministers to keep quiet about the sexual assault charges and even refrained from mentioned the case at this week's UMP parliamentary party meeting - knowing, no doubt, that any remarks would be leaked.
At first glance, Strauss-Kahn's removal from the equation greatly enhances Sarkozy's prospects. The former IMF chief would have beaten the president more comfortably than any of his socialist colleagues, opinion polls suggest. A heavyweight politician with experience and a flair for economics, Strauss-Kahn's stint in Washington had developed his statesmanlike credentials and turned him into a formidable opponent.
The Élysée believes this week's events will alter the dynamic of the campaign. "The affair removes two major campaign themes: morality and experience," said Brice Hortefeux, a close Sarkozy adviser, in yesterday's Le Monde. How can the PS attack Sarkozy for his flashy lifestyle, the argument goes, when they put up with Strauss-Kahn for so long?
And while Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister, could have challenged Sarkozy on experience, that's less true of the new socialist frontrunners Martine Aubry, a former minister for labour, and François Hollande, who has never served in cabinet. Although Hollande has cast himself as a reformist social democrat, both he and Aubry are considered further to the left by instinct than Strauss-Kahn, whose centrism would have posed problems for Sarkozy in some key battlegrounds.
For all that, however, an alternative reading of this week's events is less reassuring for the Élysée. A Strauss-Kahn candidacy would have neutralised criticism of "le président bling-bling", as he is unaffectionately called, whereas Hollande and Aubry are two of the least flashy politicians in their party. Already, Hollande has been casting himself as "un président normal" and arguing that after five years of Sarkozy's hyperactive, impetuous rule, France craves someone quieter and less polarising.
Add to this the fact that the UMP has been fragmenting for months and that some UMP figures believe DSK's departure has come too early to have an effect. Whereas this week's events might have swung the election if it was two months away, they argue, as it is people may have forgotten about Strauss-Kahn by April 2012.
A further problem for Sarkozy may the the effect of this week's events on Marine Le Pen's support. The far-right leader has been drawing centre-right voters away from the UMP, and she may well use the arrest of Strauss-Kahn to reinforce one of her signature messages: that France's establishment is a cosy club that has lost touch with ordinary people.
Yesterday, Le Pen accused the political elite of turning a blind eye to what she called Strauss-Kahn's "almost pathological" womanising.
Opinion polls carried out this week show little significant shift in voter preferences. Most suggest a gain of one or two percentage points for Sarkozy, but show that the socialists would still win a presidential election if it were held today. Hollande has become the frontrunner.
According to the pollster Ifop, he would win 26 per cent of the first round vote against Sarkozy's 21 per cent.