Bayrou hints at poll support for Royal

Never has a defeated candidate looked so happy or known himself to be so important. The centrist politician François Bayrou refused yesterday to give his support to either of the remaining contenders for the French presidency and announced that he was creating a new party to break the "undemocratic" left-right mould of French politics.

However, Mr Bayrou - in a press conference in which he savoured and weighed every word - accepted an offer from the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal, to meet him for a public debate before the second round of the election a week on Sunday. Mme Royal later invited him to join her at a "forum" with the regional press on Friday.

M. Bayrou, who came third in Sunday's first round with 18.5 per cent of the vote, is in a pivotal position to influence the outcome of the second round on 6 May.

He refused to wield that influence directly yesterday but came close to hinting a personal preference for Mme Royal or, at least, a greater personal distaste for the centre-right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy.

He criticised both the remaining candidates. He rejected as "impossible in the present situation" Mme Royal's suggestion that he might enter a "rainbow" government of left and centre if she became President.

However, M. Bayrou reserved his harshest and most personal attacks for the former interior minister. He compared M. Sarkozy to the defeated Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. He said that M. Sarkozy had a "taste for intimidation and menace". If elected, his links with media and business tycoons would "concentrate power" in France as it "has never been concentrated before".

Although M. Bayrou also criticised Mme Royal's proposals for new forms of government intervention and spending, he also referred to "points of convergence" in the Socialist and centrist programmes. M. Bayrou said that he might announce his preference after meeting Mme Royal or after the official, televised debate between the remaining candidates next Wednesday. "I have to tell you, that as things are, I don't know what I will do," M. Bayrou said. "I am starting to know how I will not do. I imagine that, if you read my words, you will begin to understand what I mean."

In the context, this seemed to be a clear hint that he would never consider voting for M. Sarkozy.

Ultimately, however, M. Bayrou seemed more concerned about his own political future than the outcome of the presidential election.

He announced that he was creating a new "democratic" party - whose name had yet to be decided - from his existing party, the Union Pour la Démocratie Française (UDF).

His intention seems to be to abandon the many Sarkozy-leaning UDF members of parliament before they abandon him. M. Bayrou said the new party would run a candidate in every constituency in the parliamentary elections, which follow the presidential elections in June.

The new party will abandon the old alliance with M. Sarkozy's UMP, in which candidates of one party traditionally stand down for the other in the second round. M. Bayrou said the new party would be dedicated to building social democracy and "truly" democratic political system in France, with a stronger parliament, impartial justice and other institutions and a free press.

Critics within his own party suggest that his real aim is to build a Bayrou bandwagon to fight - and this time to win - the presidential election of 2012.

What will Bayrou voters do? According to one poll, they are leaning almost two to one for Royal. This is not quite enough to give Mme Royal victory on 6 May - but it is not far off.

One poll yesterday showed the race almost tied, 51 per cent for Sarkozy and 49 per cent for Royal. The daily Ipsos-Dell tracking poll showed the gap narrowing but still easily in Sarkozy's favour at 53.5 per cent to Royal's 46.5 per cent.