These difficulties are added problems of centrist candidates themselves

Of the "basis of the refounding of the centre" on Senator Jean Arthuis Tuesday last. a press conference of François Bayrou the next day and an interview in "The cross" yesterday to explain its refocusing and justify his meetings with Nicolas Sarkozy; a Congress of the new Centre in Tours this weekend and the "States General" of the centrists of the UMP next week... Less than two years of the presidential election, the time is more than ever in the large manoeuvres at the centre. Objective: to attempt to retrieve these centrist voters disorientated and, for many of them dormant. For political scientists and pollsters, it's one of the "major issues" of the presidential election.

"Master steps of its own destiny".

If it is coveted so, it is because, on paper, the centrist electorate weighs heavy. In the polls, some 25-30 of the French to say neither right nor left, even if no centrist candidate in the Elysee Palace has never reached this level (except Valéry Giscard d'Estaing). In fact, "10 to 15 " of the vote would now be "préemptables", according to the analysis of Gaël Sliman, Deputy Director General of BVA. The bulk of the battalion is made up of electors who voted for François Bayrou in 2007 (18,57 of the vote) and "do to recognize more in its political offer." The themes of interest to them are known: attached to the moderation and compromise, the centrist electorate is particularly sensitive to European issues, favourable to freedom of enterprise as solidarity, concerned by the magnitude of the debt and deficits.

The problem is that the centrist offer already crumbled, is subject to strong competition. As Europe ecology, especially if it is Eva Joly that bears its colours to the presidential. That of Dominique de Villepin, who "has the highest rating for the future among the supporters of the Modem", notes Emmanuel River, Director of the TNS-Sofres opinion strategies Department. Not to mention the threat of a candidacy of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, widely mordrait to the centre. "To paraphrase Bismarck speaking of the Poland,"if it is not going to the centre, it goes nowhere"." "Under the Fifth Republic, the centre is not master of his destiny", insists Frédéric Dabi, Director of the opinion of the Ifop Institute Department.

These difficulties are added problems of centrist candidates themselves. Focusing, François Bayrou takes the risk of a little further destabilizes his voters. "He has lost the right-wing electorate by going to the left, and loses the electorate of left back on the right." "One cannot enter in strength and moving every eight days in the Marshal", Sonny ex-MEP Jean-Louis Bourlanges, close to Jean Arthuis, while admitting that François Bayrou is "for many the only" to represent the centre at the presidential. Jean Arthuis is little known of opinion. As Hervé Morin, "it is, as Jean-Louis Borloo, too in legacy to seduce necessarily severe centrist voters to the sarkozysme," explains Jean-Louis Bourlanges. A former UDF can ask - even if it does say nothing s ' he dreams not to go, too, to the battle.