la gauche in France

for those not following the French presidential election as closely as I am, left to right, depicted by Plantu of Le Monde, Jean-Luc Melenchon, candidate of the far left, who is pulling in many thousands at rallies, Francois Hollande, well, you can see what the chain on his ankle is indicating, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who on hearing "La Gauche" (a feminine noun in French) says "Do I know her?", indicating as clearly as possible what his own personal ball and chain is.  OK, not very subtle, but the broadsheets rarely are.  You need a tabloid for that.  I learned a long time ago that broadsheet headlines are understandable by just about anybody "UK set to go into recession in first quarter of 2012", but for tabloid ones to be comprehensible you need HUGE amounts of context.  "Gotcha!"  Oh yes.  Meanwhile, in the French election campaign Marine Le Pen, far right Front National, in third place, inches forward, tortoise-like.  The Green campaign appears to have failed already, and Francois Bayrou, for MoDem, the equivalent of the LibDems - well, there is simply no point to him, as there is not to the LibDems in the UK.  The important thing to remember is that there are two rounds of voting, two weeks apart.  The first round is on 22nd April.  I would be surprised if Melenchon makes it into the second round.  And some of his votes will go to Le Pen, as will some of Hollande's as time goes on.  But most of Melenchon's will go to Hollande.  The crucial point is how many of his, and Hollande's - who is not wowing the electorate - go to not voting.  Quite a lot I would say.  That could leave a run-off between Sarko (currently ahead) and Le Pen.  And then, who knows?  Just saying...