Can Sarko be beaten? Can Sego beat Sarko? Can Sarko lose? These are the headlines in France this week. The first round of the presidential elections produced few surprises on Sunday. The Sarko-Sego duel was almost inevitable. It has received top media billing long before the two were even official candidates.

Nicolas Sarkozy was widely expected to come out as the front-runner, and he did, but his 31 percent share of the popular vote surprised some. It is a ringing endorsement, particularly with such a high voter turnout, and gives Sarkozy a 5 percent lead over Segolene Royal. A pretty good head start.

The second-round polls aren’t quite as categorical: He is still tipped to win, but the margin is down to just a couple of percentage points. A poll out yesterday gives him 53 percent over 47 percent for Royal; another cuts it much finer: 51 percent for Sarkozy, 49 percent for Royal. And yet you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d already won it; such is the rhetoric on the street and on screen.

So can he be beaten? Yes is the answer, which does not mean that he will be beaten, just that he can be beaten. The key to the Elysee Palace is held not by the right, nor by the left, but by the center — by the 7 million voters who opted for Francois Bayrou.

The first round was about harvesting the votes of the two ends of the political spectrum. Sarkozy wooed the right looking to siphon off Jean-Marie Le Pen’s votes. This policy paid off. The far right gained 10 percent of the popular vote, substantially less than predicted. Meanwhile, the left appealed for the “useful vote”, a call to vote for Royal and not splinter the left-wing vote as happened in 2002. Again this policy paid off. The five candidates of the extreme left not only did relatively poorly but also immediately endorsed Segolene Royal for the second round. Neither Royal nor Sarkozy need be concerned about getting the votes from the left or from the right, those are in the bag. The left may start to squirm as Royal moves further toward the center — a repositioning she is fashioning with agility and grace — but given a choice between Sarkozy and Royal, they will vote Royal. As for the right, Sarkozy is their man through and through, they will vote in force on May 6.

So what of the third man? Who gets his vote? All eyes were on Francois Bayrou this week to see whom he would endorse. Neither, was his rather disingenuous answer. He is in a delicate position. On the one hand, he performed remarkably well on Sunday. 18 percent is an impressive score for someone who started the campaign with just 6 percent of voting intentions. But this is a two-horse race, being third means you are out. Add to that the oddity of the French electoral system where the parliamentary elections are held a month after the presidential elections. He is a politician. He is out of the presidential elections. His next goal is to gain as many parliamentary seats as possible. And here he is stuck between a rock and a hard place. His party — the UDF — has traditionally been allied with the right. Many of his parliamentarians rely on the UMP — Sarkozy’s party — not fielding candidates against them in order to get elected. Several UDF politicians have already jumped ship and endorsed Sarkozy. And so he launched a new party on Wednesday: The Democrat Party.

Bayrou refuses to endorse either of the candidates. His brilliant summing up of the choice facing France is that of voting for a man who will concentrate power and increase the social and political divide or a woman whose program will harm the economy at a critical time. But he reserves his gunfire for Sarkozy. He describes him as a tyrant, a man who relies on threats and intimidation and whose fiery temper makes him ill-suited to be president. He also reiterates again and again Sarkozy’s strong links with big business and his control of the French media. He may not be for Royal, but he is certainly against Sarkozy.

Royal has waltzed toward him with all her power and charm. She has offered to include ministers from his party in her Cabinet. She has put herself forward as a woman willing to bring together people from different backgrounds and political families. Moreover she has indicated a willingness to bring in some of Bayrou’s ideas and is aiming to reassure his voters that her policies are not so different after all. In what I find a rather bizarre offer, she has suggested a televised debate with Bayrou. Whereas a debate normally serves to put clear blue water between two candidates, this one aims to do the exact opposite, but then again Bayrou is no longer a candidate. Royal describes the debate as a chance to clarify her policies and to highlight the convergence between their policies. Bayrou, eager to stay in the political limelight, has readily accepted the televised debate.

Sarkozy on the other hand finds the whole idea ludicrous and has refused to take part in a debate with a man already out of the race. A televised debate between Sarkozy and Royal is already in place for May 2.

Clearly Royal and Bayrou are aligning themselves. Royal is banking on seducing Bayrou’s voters to win this election. Bayrou is banking on the anything-but-Sarko movement to win him political power. The question it seems is not whether Sarkozy can win this election but whether he can lose it.