Word Of The Week

socle

Now that the first round of voting is over and ten of the twelve candidates for president have been eliminated, the French news organizations are doing their thing. They're analyzing the merde out of everything. Of course, that's what news organizations do. Analysis begins with anal... but that's another language issue.

The news folks are also beginning to frame up the second round, talking about what each candidate will do to get votes from the losing candidates' supporters. The extremes on both the left and the right will likely support the logical left or right candidate, or not vote at all. The big question is what will happen with the voters who supported Bayrou, the self-proclaimed centrist.

Since Bayrou comes from the party of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, his political leanings have historically been to the right, albeit center-right. It follows that he was the alternative to Sarkozy for right-leaning voters. But it remains to be seen whether those right-leaning voters would actually vote against Sarkozy in favor of the socialist candidate. I bet not many of them will.

As for the lefties that voted Bayrou, they did so more than likely because they were not inspired by Ségolène Royal. But I simply can't imagine them casting a vote for Sarkozy in the second round.

So, what will the split be ? Right now it looks good for Sarkozy. But anything can happen, as it did in 1981 when Mitterrand took the big prize.

This is a very long-winded way of getting to this week's word. A lot of the news analysts are making references to each candidate's "base." Socle, from the latin socculus, is literally a base or pedestal, on which a column or statue rests. It's also used to refer to a politician's base : the group of voters whose allegiance to their chosen party or candidate is clear and unwavering.

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