With accusations of fascism and lying, incompetence and imbecility, the French presidential campaign has been one of the nastiest in memory 
writes
Steven Erlanger.
One legislator from the governing party even compared the partner of the Socialist challenger to a Rottweiler.
With only a week to go before incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy faces off against the favored candidate, the Socialist François Hollande, the insults are flying. Mr. Sarkozy is trying to make up the gap and win back the votes of the far-right National Front of Marine Le Pen, while Mr. Hollande is trying to stay above the fray with professions of national unity, letting his adjutants open fire on his behalf.
… Writing in Le Point, Pierre-Antoine Delhommais noted that Michel Serres had called this a campaign of “old grandpas.”
But if he were not measuring his words, Mr. Delhommais continued, he would have called it “a campaign of bitter old farts, uptight and hateful. It is truly time that it ends.”
