PARIS -- A month before the first round of the French presidential election, the campaign is duller than ever. As Jonathan Fenby recently wrote in Time magazine, "Chirac and Jospin have so far failed to ignite voters' enthusiasm."
The popularity rate of President Jacques Chirac has fallen from 54 to 43 percent in three months, and he is now running neck to neck with Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, his main rival. None of the other candidates has succeeded in getting the support he or she expected. Former socialist Home Minister Jean-Pierre Chevenement, who has managed to rally nationalists and both right- and leftwing "sovereignists" around him, was previously believed to pose a challenge to the incumbents, but will probably have to satisfy himself with 7 or 8 percent of the vote.
The only outsider who really seems to be gaining ground is the Trotskyist Arlette Laguiller, 62, who is now assured of bypassing the rather colorless Communist candidate Robert Hue. It's hard to believe now that 20 years ago a good part of the French right was convinced that a victory by the socialist Francosis Mitterrand would lead to a communist takeover.