It is that time of year again. The late-winter ritual when for two weeks French farmers receive the applause of the nation and go back home feeling that perhaps it's all worth while after all. The annual Salon de l'Agriculture is a morale-boosting exercise for all concerned. Farmers show off their prize steers and enjoy a few days in the big smoke with their wives; Parisians get the thrill of pretending they are still country-folk at heart; and politicians are assured a succession of top-class photo-ops. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin took top award this year for "ingratiating self-abasement in a noble cause" when he posed with a kid goat around his neck like the good shepherd from the bible story. Hundreds of thousands visit the Salon every February, and it is actually a bit of a nightmare on a crowded Saturday. But hats off to France. The French cherish their countryside, and realise its importance for both the economy and national identity. Who is to say they are wrong to try to protect and preserve it? Anyway there was one glaring absentee this year from the show -- poultry. The bird flu scare did its damnedest, and the halls were free of honking geese and rare breeds of cock. A shame. But there was everything else this year, including the mandatory bulls with hyper-developed privates (see pic)

Segolene Royal

Could France have a Royal back at its helm next year for the first time in a century and a half? And a female Royal at that? Needless to say, I speak not of a reconstituted monarchy, but of the latest star to light the political firmament here. The woman in question is Segolene Royal. She is tall and attractive. She is the partner of Socialist leader Francois Hollande and the mother of their four children. She is a Socialist MP and the president of the Poitou-Charente region. She served briefly as minister of the environment in 1992, and later had junior portfolios for children and family affairs in the government of Lionel Jospin. She is also the person most of the French public say they would like to see representing the Socialists at the 2007 presidential election. One poll last week even suggested that she is now the most popular politician in France -- of all political persuasions. In other words she outranked not just rivals on the left like Jack Lang and Laurent Fabius but also the big hitters on the right like Dominique de Villepin and Nicolas Sarkozy. If say Sarkozy were to be the right's candidate in May next year, and the left agreed to put up Royal -- who is to say that she would not be the winner? After all the story of recent elections in France has been flip followed by flop. The old lot are always turfed out -- which means Buggin's turn could well go to the left next time. Personally I think Royal is the best-placed to challenge the right. People like her because she breaks the mould. She is not one of the "dinosaurs" of the party like Fabius or Lang. Because of that she is viewed with mistrust by many in the socialist party, but that in a way is a great asset. The public is utterly fed up with the same old faces. But whether she would have the weight to beat a Sarkozy or a Villepin is another matter. To have been environment minister for less than a year in 1992 is not exactly an impressive CV. And she has yet to put her name to a single substantive policy initiative. Supporters say that is all to come. She is launching a website and political club this month, and a book follows in March. But the problem is that in today's divided Socialist party, saying anything of significance -- say on Europe or the future of the French "model" -- risks reigniting the internal conflagration. For May 2007 I would put my money on a Sarkozy-Royal run-off, with Sarkozy winning hands down.

Back after a break occasioned by riots and then a much-needed breather. A most depressing time. But a few weeks on everything seems eerily back to normal. The government has just announced a few more aid schemes for the banlieues, as well as initiatives to discourage discrimination in the jobs market. But will it make any difference? Personally I doubt it. The suburbs have had money flung at them for a quarter of a century, and anti-discrimination plans -- however well-intentioned -- need real teeth. Remember the furore over bussing in the US? It takes that kind of a showdown. I predict more rioting -- and on a larger scale -- if Nicolas Sarkozy wins the presidential race in 2007. And if I were a betting man, I would still say he is odds on. Sarkozy has earned the utter venom of the political left and all bien-pensant Parisians because he is quite obviously courting the same far-right vote that upset the last presidential race in 2002 (when Le Pen won through to round two). His response is to say that it is the failure of French politics to bring these people into the main stream that is the real fault. His tough line is certainly popular -- but for the young blacks and arabs he is now the very symbol of all they loathe. Over and again at the scene of the riots one got the same answer: he insulted us, he treats us like dogs etc. Interestingly for linguists, there are two French words at the centre of this debate: racaille and karcher. Racaille has entered modern legend by being translated into Engish as scum. This -- it seems to me -- is woefully excessive. Scum registers 9.9 on the scale of English invective. It really implies deep disgust and a desire to do ill. Racaille is strong -- but not that strong. Also it is worth saying that Sarkozy applied it to the criminal element in the banlieues -- not to the general population. As for karcher, it's an industrial trademark that has entered the dictionaries. It means a water-jet cleaner. Sarkozy said he would use one to clean out the bad elements. Again, not a pretty turn of phrase. But again, he made the remarks at the scene where an 11 year-old boy had just been shot dead in an exchange of gunfire by drugs gangs. The boy was washing his father's car as a Father's day gift. For many people in France -- judging by the polls -- Sarkozy's language was spot on.

I have just got back from 10 days in Dublin to find France buried in gloom and self-doubt. Actually when you think about it, France at the moment is permanently buried in gloom and self-doubt. So let us say that it has plumbed new depths in its crisis of chronic angst. The reason of course is the loss of the Olympics. Losing it is one thing, losing it to London is quite another. For many here the defeat epitomises France's position as permanent runner-up in the battle for influence with "Les Anglo-Saxons." Personally, without wishing to boast, I saw it coming. Several friends can attest to my predictions of this outcome. My reasoning was -- and is -- that the "music" was all wrong. Any city worth its salt can mount a professional PR campaign, with the top film dirctor, shots of kiddies etc etc. What will set two bids apart is mood. And the French mood was all wrong. From the strikes during the visit by the Olympic committee in February to the "no" in the EU referendum and Chirac's cack-handed remarks about English cooking, the "feel" was of a country that is suspicious of outsiders and outdated. Now the mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe has added to the humiliation by publicly accusing London of "cheating." Apparently he thinks Tony Blair should not have invited IOC delegates to be lobbied in his room in Singapore -- even though Jacques Chirac was glad-handing with plenty of determination in the hotel lobby below. It is a rare faux-pas by Delanoe -- vehemently attacked by his left-wing supporters in Liberation newspaper today -- and only goes to show how rattled the whole country is by the Olympic debacle.

Lunch at the British ambassador's residence comes around every few months. John Holmes (who likes to joke that he shares a naame with a well-known 70s porn star) is good enough to invite the British hack-pack around to discuss the latest news. On the last occasion -- in March I think -- there was much glad talk of the success of the Entente Cordiale centenary which took place in 2004. A year of commemorations to mark the 100 years since the great act of Franco-British understanding had passed off without flaw, and we were set fair for a new era of warmth and cross-channel cooperation. But as John Holmes says over lunch this week, trying to maintain good relations between Paris and London is a Sisyphean task. Just when you are at the top of hill, the rock rolls down again. Things could hardly be worse. Chirac and Blair dislike each other personally, and the animosity is only intensified by the French belief that Britain is poised to launch its "liberal" agenda on a failing EU. Downing St meanwhile sees Chirac as yesterday's man, though it has still got to work with him for the next two years. Where would we be without these diplomatic roller-coaster rides? At least it provides plenty of good journalistic copy.

One week to go and it looks like the unthinkable may well happen. The "no" vote for the May 29 referendum on the EU constitution now stands at 52 percent in the opinion polls. Six surveys over the last week have produced more or less the same result. If I were a government "yes" man, I would be very worried indeed. How on earth has it comes to this? Seen from any other perspective, France has wangled for itself an extremely favourable document. The EU constitution was drawn up by a former French president and is thoroughly Gallic in its conception and language. By diplomatic dexterity, the French government got the text past all the 24 others -- only to discover that the one thing it hadn't taken account of was its own fickle public. Two months ago the polls were overwhelmingly for the "yes," but in the space of a short campaign a majority seems to have been convinced that the constitution is a sell-out to that bogey of the national imagination, "neo-liberalism." I think the answer is in essence quite simple. The French are anxious and afraid. The good years ended in the 70s and since then (they think) it has been all downhill: economic uncertainty, unemployment and mass immigration from north Africa. The same period has seen the growth in power of the Brussels technocracy as European intergation forged ahead. The public thinks the two processes are related: and if they can only shift Europe off its current trajectory, then the good old days of ease and security will return. They are undoubtedly wrong. But the French have a weird knack of thinking the world should follow France and not the other way around. One woman told me the peoples of Europe would be grateful for a French No vote, because it would be a positive pro-European No, not a nasty British Eurosceptic one. Really? I think the reaction of the rest of Europe will be to say what a load of arrogant ingrates.

I am afraid I am having one of my "can you believe it?" moments. A year ago the government passed a law decreeing that one of France's 11 annual bank holidays is to be scrapped. It was a way of raising extra money for the elderly, who suffered terribly in the 2003 heatwave, and at the time it all seemed a pretty fine idea. It is not as if there is any shortage of holidays in May. If they all (four of them) fall on Tuesdays or Thursday and thereby make the "pont" with the weekend, it can mean the country grinds to a complete halt for half the month. Whit Monday (or Pentecost Monday) was chosen as the holiday for the chop, and we all prepared to do our bit. But somehow as the day approached the warm glow of "solidarity" has chilled into mean-minded Gallic truculence. Strikes have been called by all the unions, one of which has gone so far as to describe the abolition of the holiday as "forced labour." More than half the population say they plan to take the day off regardless. Newspapers like le Monde blame the government -- of course -- for "failing to communicate," but I am left wondering what any government can do with a public like this. Solidarity, my ....