While the French occasionally cast a horrified eye on the U.S. presidential campaign, the average American knows nothing about the French one. As a long-term expat, I enjoy the spectacle of French politics. Just like a baseball game, it becomes more interesting as you get to know the characters of the players.

So here is my far-from-disinterested and full-of-random-factoids rundown on the Présidentiables for 2012. (I’m only mentioning the ones who seem to be taken seriously by large numbers of people.) The election is sooner than the American one– the two ballots will be held in April and May of next year. There is a by-election for the Socialists, France’s apparently biggest party, coming up the 9th and 16th of this month.

Nicolas Sarkozy is still Président de la République and eligible to run for a second five-year term. His second wife Cecilia (a descendant of Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz) dumped him for millionaire ad man/events organizer Richard Attias shortly after his election and moved to New York. Sarkozy rebounded with gorgeous Italian model and his third wife, Carla Bruni, who before she met him told a friend, “I want a man with nuclear power.” They are expecting a baby any minute. Sarkozy, formerly mayor of Neuilly, a posh suburb of Paris, is known for being intelligent and driven, but also extremely sensitive about his education (he did not go to a Grande École), his social status, and most notoriously, his height. There’s no doubt that it was convenient for him that Dominique Strauss-Kahn had that unfortunate interlude in a New York hotel. DSK was unquestionably the front-runner.

Dominique de Villepin (whose de is not noble, by the way), another Sciences-Po and ÉNA graduate among so many, was just declared innocent in the Clearstream affair, which frankly was not a surprise: when was an important French politician ever found guilty of anything? He was Prime Minister of France for two years. He has published, among other books, a volume of poetry and has a daughter who was a fashion model in New York. He has returned to the political struggle, criticizing Sarkozy and his “imperial” manner.

>read more about more candidates on the right, and those on the left