France
is in flux with its former President, Nicolas Sarkozy, conceding defeat in the
presidential primary, a faint echo of the system that exists across the
Atlantic.

The
outcome also marks a turning-point in his career, with the announcement that he
as leader of the centre-right Les Republicains party intends to retire from
public life. At one stage of the preparatory contest, Sarkozy was hoping
to  step into the Elysee Palace again by
wooing the voters who might be tempted to vote for Marine Le Pen, the far-right
leader of the Front National (FN).

The move
has backfired, and trends do suggest that many voters were intent to stop
Sarkozy in his tracks. Rather than preferences for and prejudices against the
Left or the Right, it is the anti-Sarkozy mood that appears to have influenced
the outcome of Sunday’s primaries.

In the
event, the former President has finished third in the race and the party’s two
leading candidates in the poll  — Francois
Fillon, his deputy, and Alain Juppe — will now have to battle it out in the
run-off vote on 27 November.

Fillon,
a Thatcherite, has emerged as a spectacular first, ahead of Alain Juppe. The
ultimate contest for the Elysee could well be between Fillon and the anti-EU Le
Pen. Considering her  performance in the
primaries, it is fairly obvious that the political contours of France are
changing, arguably as a sequel to the racist strife and Islamist attacks in recent
years.

The
Left, or more accurately the Socialist camp, represented by the incumbent
President, Francois Hollande, is palpably down but not out. But there is little
doubt that the forces of the Right are gradually on the ascendant, and Les
Republicains is likely to face a fairly stiff challenge from Le Pen’s Front
National during the presidential elections next summer.

Another
significant feature of the primaries is that this is the first time that the US
system has been used for choosing the contending candidates. The praxis might
be similar, but unlike in the US,  a
“stunning” victory or defeat can be ruled out if the choice before the voter is
between Le Pen and Francois Fillon.

For now,
Sarkozy’s hope of re-entering the presidential palace — after his defeat
against Socialist Hollande in 2012 — has been dashed. He  was remarkably gracious on Monday as he took
the bow from public life — “Good luck, France,” was his farewell message.

Clearly,
he has failed to influence the voter despite his robust stance on such prickly
issues as national identity, immigration and Islam, verily the ones that have
ignited mortal attacks by the Islamist fringe in recent years. The political
history of France is set to enter a new phase.