But while Royal has been careful to placate her socialist base, she has also talked about the need for market reforms in the French economy, and taken some foreign policy positions on Iran and Turkey that are closer to the American view than are Sarkozy’s. The centrist candidate, former education minister François Bayrou, for his part, has relatives in the US and has called for a “third way” in French politics analogous to the paths forged by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.