My comment: Some parts of this sound very familiar....

By Nick Cohen, The Observer @ guardian.co.uk, April 7, 2012

[....] To the radical left, he is the political equivalent of a dull bank manager. To the right, he is a red revolutionary. At a rally in Nice, Hollande appeared to half-understand his problem when he mocked Sarkozy's pose as an outsider who wanted to overthrow a Parisian establishment headed by himself. "Sometimes during this campaign," Hollande said, "I wonder if I'm not the sitting president."

He spoke truer than he knew. Because he is the front-runner, everyone is targeting him as if he were the incumbent. The French system encourages fratricidal strife on both left and right. The parties must fight one another to see which one of them can represent their side in the final round. As the most plausible source of votes for Mélenchon is the Socialist party, and as the far left has always hated the centre left as much as it has hated the right, his Parti de Gauche is pounding Hollande. The Socialists are fakes, it argues. Hollande's commitment to reducing France's deficit shows that he is as bad as Sarkozy. The negative campaigning may chip away at Hollande's vote [....]