The French presidential election campaign officially began from the early hours of Easter Monday (April 9) and runs until late night on Friday the 20th. In this brief twelve-day final sprint, candidates large and small all hope to win voters' confidence and secure ballots from a broader electorate. Even today, 30 percent of voters remain on the sidelines, still unable to decide their orientation (many lack confidence in these candidates' political arguments and positions, or are even disillusioned with politics). From now until the first-round voting day, the campaign is officially underway, and people can see, in front of polling stations at schools and public institutions, the official posters of the twelve French presidential candidates along with their eye-catching ideological slogans:

No. 1 — Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) postman Olivier Besancenot, "Our lives are worth more than their profits" (Nous vies valent plus que leurs profits); No. 2 — Communist Party (PCF) candidate Marie-George Buffet, "For the left to be faithful to its values, determined to change everyday life" (Pour que la gauche soit fidele a ses valeurs, determinee a changer la vie quotidienne); No. 3 — Workers' Party (PT) candidate Gerard Schivardi, slogan "Break with the European Union" (Rupture avec L Union Europeenne); No. 4 — UDF centrist Francois Bayrou, "France of all our strengths" (La France de toutes nos forces); No. 5 — anti-liberal José Bové, "For an alternative on the left, another future is possible" (Pour une alternative a gauche, Un autre avenier est possible); No. 6 — French Green Party (Les Verts) candidate Dominique Voynet, "The ecological revolution" (La revolution ecologique); No. 7 — MPF far-right candidate Philippe de Villiers, "The pride of being French" (La fierte d etre Francais); No. 8 — Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal, "Presidential France" (La France Presidente); No. 9 — Hunters' Party (CPNT) candidate Fréderic Nihous, "Rurality first" (La ruralite d abord); No. 10 — FN far-right National Front candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, "Vote (for me) Le Pen" (Voter Le Pen); No. 11 — Workers' Struggle (LO) candidate Arlette Laguiller, "Vote (for me) Arlette Laguiller" (Voter Arlette Laguiller); No. 12 — UMP party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, "Together everything becomes possible" (Ensembre tout devient possible).

In addition, on French public television and radio, each presidential candidate's three-minute-thirty-second televised policy statement is broadcast every day before the late-night news. Each candidate launches the public campaign with concise, forceful political rhetoric aimed directly at the public's heart, with all promotional shorts accompanied by clear subtitles below. Unfortunately, only the short by Dominique Voynet of the French Green Party (Les Verts) includes sign language. Most are centered on the candidate: Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal in an imaginative deep-blue background; UMP party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy beneath poetic blue skies and white clouds; Communist Party (PCF) candidate Marie-George Buffet in traditional communist red; UDF centrist Francois Bayrou and Workers' Struggle (LO) candidate Arlette Laguiller both in front of book-filled libraries; far-right National Front candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in front of his "Vote (for me) Le Pen" poster; French Green Party (Les Verts) candidate Dominique Voynet and Hunters' Party (CPNT) candidate Fréderic Nihous both choosing outdoor forest settings; anti-liberal José Bové appearing in interview form, supplemented with interviews of other anti-liberals; Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) postman Olivier Besancenot appearing through documentary footage and interviews of canvassing in every corner of society, and so on.

These brief political arguments and images are sufficient to deeply influence the still-hesitant voters, because the most powerful mass medium influencing elections today is "television." The intensifying campaign theater continues with fierce exchanges. This time it is not a left-right confrontation, but rather right versus far right: National Front's Le Pen mounts an unusual counterattack against Nicolas Sarkozy for encroaching on his territory, mocking him as not an authentic Frenchman (Nicolas Sarkozy is of Hungarian descent), saying that if one must choose, one should choose him, as he is the genuine, original Frenchman — instantly provoking public uproar. The right and far right trade barbs in a war of words while seemingly making overtures, as if signaling an expedient division of the election, or perhaps there are even more ingenious campaign tactics and meta-possibilities, constructing the right's territory through favorable and tangled mutual alliances (because the UMP party candidate has been courting the far right all along, since with far-right votes victory would be more secure) or the far right's expediency. Hence some have asked: "If the right-wing candidate is unexpectedly struck out and National Front's Le Pen advances to the first round, how would Nicolas Sarkozy handle it? The show will go on and on."

The controversy stirred up by frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy — that "those with a predilection for sex with minors and those who commit suicide — it is all the fault of genes" — continues to provoke disputes within the scientific community and raises deep doubts about this candidate's character. Experts unanimously agree that it seems necessary to thoroughly subject this candidate to in-depth psychological, physiological, and psychiatric analysis. Of course, these may merely be campaign tactics from Sun Tzu's Art of War. It appears these are the forays and tactics of contemporary art: to court the media, one must keep the discourse in progress to have a chance at entering the system and making a name (whether good or not). The main prospective discourse and social political debate have all been left by the wayside. A theater of Molière-style farce, mocking right and wrong, plays on endlessly.

In this French presidential campaign, the far right's rhetoric has already been institutionalized and popularized, especially in the political discourse of former Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, where national identity, the immigration bureau, the national flag, and the national anthem have all become this election's unprecedented major talking points. The National Front's long-standing slogan of "French first and foremost" has instead disappeared, packaged within the traditional right's more docile national political strategy. While opinion polls show all major candidates continuing to cool down, only National Front's Le Pen's polling continues to surge, rising from 6 percent to 15 percent — truly hard to imagine. In this campaign, numerous foreign journalists have described it as the worst French presidential election they have ever seen. All of this more or less proves the current downward trajectory of the French state (from competitiveness to influence and so on). The refinement and splendor that once pervaded French society and culture are melting away, degrading their brilliant luster.