Negative campaigning is so wrong

Except when it's done by the right people for the right cause, of course:

Ségolène Royal intensified a desperate final effort yesterday to tar Nicolas Sarkozy, her presidential opponent, as a dangerous tyrant whose election would threaten the peace of France.

Ms Royal, the left-wing candidate who is about four points behind the conservative Mr Sarkozy in polls, denounced her opponent for the “great violence” and “brutality” of a campaign that she maintained was frightening away voters.

She will use a critical television debate with her opponent tomorrow to contrast her “France at peace with itself” with Mr Sarkozy’s “France of the hard Right”.

Ms Royal’s line of attack, five days before the country goes to the polls, was amplified yesterday by aides and supporters. In the latest torrent of anti-Sarko vitriol, 100 stars of the arts and sciences declared that “Sarkozy embodies a hard radicalised Right . . . with all its fears and hates. Entrusting the presidency to a demagogue like this means real danger.”

For the Left, vilifying Mr Sarkozy offers a last hope of breaking his march to the Elysée Palace on Sunday. Ms Royal’s aim is to stir anti-Sarkozy fears among those who voted for the centrist candidate, François Bayrou, who was eliminated with 18 per cent of the vote on April 22.

After attacking Mr Bayrou as a stealth Sarkozyite in the first phase of the campaign, Ms Royal has reversed course over the past week and waged a charm offensive towards him and his voters. In another gesture yesterday, she suggested that, if elected, she would appoint as prime minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist rival who is popular with the pro-Bayrou centre.

Fomenting the TSS factor (Tout sauf Sarkozy — anyone but Sarkozy) became inevitable when he emerged from the first-round vote with much greater credibility than Ms Royal but little popularity.

A CSA poll on Sunday found that 65 per cent of French people think Mr Sarkozy “solid” compared with only 24 per cent for the Socialist. Yet only 29 per cent find him likeable, compared with a 57 per cent rating for Ms Royal.

The Socialists set out to demonise Mr Sarkozy months ago, according to Eric Besson, a senior campaign official who defected after falling out with Ms Royal. “Since we had a weak candidate, it was the best path to take,” he said.

As a tough Interior Minister until last month, the ambitious Mr Sarkozy earned the dislike of many young people — especially those from the immigrant ghettos. His doctrines of radical economic reform and individual responsibility — never before aired by a senior French politician — have been welcomed by many as a revolution, but cast by opponents as divisive, cruel and unFrench.

Pro-Royal campaigners have called him a “French Berlusconi”, a new Bonaparte and a “French George W. Bush”.

I love that "French George W. Bush" part--it's nice to know that adding the adjective "French" to describe your political opponents is an insult there as well as here.

And how exactly would you say "Swiftboating Sarkozy" en Francais?

Would it be Bateau rapide Sarkozy?