So here we are electioneering with Joan of Arc

Happy new year! And welcome to the official opening of the French presidential campaign 2012. Indeed, since the first of January, all announced candidates have been under scrutiny, and will be until round one on April 22nd; all their TV and radio appearances are now timed to guarantee perfect media-time equality. This is straightforward enough when announced candidates such as François Hollande (Parti Socialiste, credited as being next president if one takes any notice of the polls), Hervé Morin (Nouveau Centre, 0 to 1% depending on the day), François Bayrou (Modem, centrist, 7%) and others speak into the mike: their time is counted and the idea is that everyone will have spoken the same by the eve of the first round.

It gets a little more tricky whern it comes to counting the speech time of the unofficial candidates, the biggest of these being the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy has yet to announce his running for election (though there is a 98% chance he will stand) and, as the President has a certain number of speeches, conferences and visits in his diary, it is turning out to be a nightmare deciding when Nicolas "the Prez" Sarkozy is talking as opposed to Nicolas "the candidate" Sarkozy is. To be fair, this is nothing new under the sun. All former French Presidents have waited until the last possible moment before declaring their second candidacy. Valery Giscard d'Estaing in '81 waited until March (and lost), Mitterand in '88 waited until March (and won), and Chirac in 2002 waited about the same (and won). The notable difference between these guys and Sarko is the latter gives a conference every couple of days.

The CSA, the French audiovisual watchdog that cares about such matters, has decided to analyse every word of every presidential intervention; when he talks about the need to pull together in a crisis it'll be considered legitimate President-talk; when he slams into the opposition talking about their insane fiscal policies it'll be docked off his speaking time.

But of course it's a fine line as was recently illustrated by the Joan of Arc episode. Joan of Arc, French national heroin, martyr saint and semi mythological peasant maid who is meant, aged 14 to have kicked the English out of France under God's guidance, was born 600 years ago (we think).

An important figure in French national consciousness, she has been for decades the possession of the far-right Front national who seen in her the young, guided and original French resistant, who was burned at the stake for heresy no less. Staunch National front supporters actually gather around Joan's gold statue next to the Louvre every first of may to celebrate the dedication and sacrifice of the "pucelle d'Orléans." So when her rather approximate 600th birthday came round Sarkozy decided to celebrate the event in Vaucouleurs, from where she launched her military campaign that eventually led her to Orléans and the coronation of Charles VII, over half a millenium ago...

Sarkozy is communications genius, and his use of symbols was already omnipresent in his 2007 campaign. In 2007, he accumulated refernces to the right, with the great Charles de Gaulle, resistant who saved France from the nazis and went on to become the founder of the Vth Republic, or Jean Moulin and André Malraux, major figures of the Resistance. More interestingly, he also appropriated a lot of left-wing figures, as early as January 2007 he was raving on about Jaurès and a little later Guy Moquet, the communist youth who was shot for resiting the Nazis (see post here).

Now that it's 2012, he needs to innovate and find some new unifying figures. Napoleon would be an idea but of course for Sarkozy such a choice is impossible. Since day one he has been accused of strutting around with the same megalomaniac ambitions as his fellow shorty "hyperpresident", and is often nicknamed Sarko Ier in the satirical publications. Impossible equally for Louis XIV, who as well as centralising France around Paris and modernising the country a great deal was also an egomaniac who called himswelf the Sun King.

So Sarkozy has gone into French mythology and craftily nicked, with excellent timing, the Jeanne d'Arc figure from the extreme right. A misunderstood character who ultimately led France out of the Dark Ages and the Hundred years War to independence, peace and prosperity. Remind you of anyone? And of course because this was a national hommage to a French heroin, it was the president who was doing all the work, not the candidate so the CSA can't charge him for this. What other mythological character associations can we get from Sarkozy before he declares his candidacy?