Stand by for the dirtiest French poll for decades
Put on your tin chapeaux. This is going to be the nastiest electoral campaign in recent French political history. In three days of frantic campaigning since he finally entered the race, President Nicolas Sarkozy has called the Socialist front-runner, François Hollande", a "liar, both morning and night", part of an "immobile elite" and a member of an arrogant "caste" that opposes the real interests of the French nation.
Mr Hollande, holding a substantial but narrowing lead in the polls nine weeks before the first round of voting on Sunday 22 April – there will be a second round on 6 May for the two leaders – already looks a little shell-shocked. He has countered by accusing Mr Sarkozy of "falsification", "manipulation", "brutality and wickedness". The Socialist candidate appealed on Friday for a "dignified" election campaign. Some hope.
New, and worse, vituperation can be expected when the President holds the first mass meeting of his re-election attempt before flag-waving centre-right supporters in Marseille this afternoon.
You have to hand it to Mr Sarkozy. As the most unpopular president in recent French history, he plans to fight an unashamedly populist campaign. From his guerrilla base inside the Elysée Palace, he plans to run as an outsider or, in his own phrase, "an ordinary Frenchman among the French".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/stand-by-for-the-dirtiest-french-poll-for-decades-7179550.html
Tin chapeaux. 
= new reply since forum marked as read
DipsyD, DUer outre-manche! Thanks for posting the Brit view on France's own 2012 craziness.
The most despicable thing is how Sark the Shark is going after would-be Marine LePen (Front National) voters.
He's been blatantly pandering to the worst zenophobic, racist tendencies in the French psyche.
But, Hollande doesn't excite the public much--sort of a limp rag.
We'll see in April...
SG
Tin chapeaux. 
