1981 French presidential election: what if Coluche was candidate ?

[big bad fab]

Coluche (Michel Colucci) was the first modern cabaret artist, political comic, a harsh humorist.
He really began a campaign for the presidential election and some polls gave him more than 12%.
Some socialists were a bit scared.

But he eventually stopped his campaign, because of too much media and psycholigical pressure.

Let's imagine he didn't drop, he gathered the 500 signatures from local councillors and mayors needed to be candidate and he was really candidate in the first round.

Who would be the more damaged by his candidacy ?
What would be the behaviour of the other candidates (Giscard, Mitterrand, Marchais, Chirac, Lalonde, Laguiller, Bouchardeau, Crépeau, notably) towards him ?
What would be the second round ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This could have costed Mitterrand the victory, seriously. In fact, less people believed he would win this time than in 1974, and a Coluche candidacy would be the "coup de grace".
I like Coluche very much, but in fact I'm quite happy he didn't run...

[big bad fab]

No big success for this What-if, eh ?
I didn't expect one, nonetheless.

Thanks Antonio to have answered. And more thanks as I completely disagree !

I think many voters on the left were really very eager to kick right's ass and they wouldn't have wasted their ballots.

What is more, Coluche wouldn't have been a big campaigner and Mitterrand would have been very skilled to manipulate him.
Coluche would have attacked Giscard straight on, as he didn't want Mitterrand to lose. I think he would have had the same effect as special "best of" publishings of "Le Canard Enchaîné"'s articles on Giscard's scandals (Bokassa's diamonds, "avions renifleurs", mysterious deaths of Boulin and De Broglie, etc), but earlier.
Chirac (with Pasqua, Monod and Pons) would have found a way to give Coluche's campaign some money....

So Giscard, who was high until late February, would have lost his momentum earlier.
He would have appeared old and out-of-date.
He may well have done less than in RL, even being below Mitterrand, which would have killed him for the second round.

Coluche would have mainly stolen votes to Laguiller, Bouchardeau, Lalonde, even Marchais, even if Coluche would have reached 3% max.
Marchais would have done a bit less than in RL, also because Coluche attacked the old Communists and the CGT trade-union. So, Coluche would have contributed to lessen the "red peril" (really) feared by some people in the beginning of 1981.

Coluche was a leftist guy, but also a shy and not-out-of-control guy. So Mitterrand would have rallied him without any problem between the 2 rounds. It would have been good for him among the youngs.

I think Mitterrand would have won bigger, even if marginally, something like 52 or 52,5.

Coluche was the first of these so-called "insurgencies" in first rounds or even before, that the French medias are fond of creating or boosting:
- Coluche in 1981
- Juquin in 1988
- Villiers in 1995
- Chevènement in 2002
- Bové and then Bayrou in 2007.
All were polled very high in the autumn or in the beginning of presidential year.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Interesting points, though I still have difficulties to consider that Mitterrand, who appeared "en perte de vitesse" 16 years after his first presidential bid ( and who began to know some oppositions inside his own party with Rocard's attempt to get nominated - obviously he had no chances to win, but this could, a bit like Bradley's anti-Gore crusade in 2000, have hurt him enough to lose ), would get a momentum because of Coluche's protest candidacy. Mitterrand has always tried to manipulate him, but this was firstly in order to prevent him to run, because he feared the same that I do. Obviously he would have focused his campaign against Giscard but, by doing that, he would have difficulties in taking the right's vote. You're probably right about his score, since he woul never poll 12% in real life, but even his 3% could have hurt Mitterrand ( after Marchais and Laguier naturally ). I don't see Coluche's critcs having a great effect on Giscard, since his voters were generally those who cared less about him.
Anyways, I agree that Coluche is one of the first protest candidate ( don't forget Barbu'65 and the many joke candidates in 74 BTW ). But, contrary to his successors, he did not belong to any party and had even some endorsements to the right. Very difficult to compare him to Chevènement or Bayrou, who both were leaders of quite well-established government parties.

[big bad fab]

No, I was referring to those short-lived opinion-polls-and-media-stars phenomenons.
Barbu ("Votez Barbu, Barbu n'est pas un traître") hadn't benefited from an over-exposure in the medias !
You've got the phenomenon in other elections:
European 1984 with Lalonde-Stirn-Doubin (LSD !), after a failed project of a tandem Maurice Faure-Edgar Faure,
European 1994 with Bernard Henri Lévy's list on Bosnia.

Medias always want surprises but, sometimes there aren't, sometimes there are but not the ones promised...

As for Coluche, I've been a bit short: I think Giscard would have been affected in the sense that some of his electors would have fled to Chirac.
Giscard would have been criticized in the medias (the TV was very "respectful" at the time...) far earlier than in real life. And so, some right voters would have switched to (apparently) more solid and honest Chirac.

Mitterrand wasn't "en perte de vitesse" in 1981. He was in 1978-80 in the medias, but he wasn't inside his party. What is more, he benefited from some good media appearances after January.
The end of 1980 was disastrous for Giscard and Marchais, who appeared as 2 Brezhnev boys...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Seems right. Thanks for the precisions.