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  • Nicolas Sarkozy returns to his hallmark style

    Nicolas Sarkozy returns to his hallmark style
    By Katrin Bennhold
    Published: March 19, 2007

    PARIS: Striving to consolidate his position as front-runner in the French presidential race, Nicolas Sarkozy has returned to his hallmark campaign style and the two issues that underpin his popularity among his base on the right: immigration and national identity.

    For weeks, Sarkozy, the center-right candidate, has sought to fend off his Socialist rival, Ségolène Royal, and a centrist challenger, François Bayrou, by quoting leftist icons, rallying venerable centrist politicians to his cause and insisting that he had changed.

    But as Royal and Bayrou gained ground, the old Sarkozy — the straight- talking interior minister unafraid to challenge the mainstream — has gradually resurfaced. On Sunday, defying criticism within his own political camp, he renewed a controversial proposal to create a ministry of "immigration and national identity."

    "I'm not afraid to defend the identity of France, of the republic, of the nation," he told about 8,000 members of the Gaullist youth movement in Paris. "If we don't talk about France, how can we be surprised that what separates us ends up being bigger than what unites us?"

    Later Sunday, in a national television appearance, he went further, unapologetically acknowledging that he was courting voters tempted by the National Front, the far-right party led by Jean- Marie Le Pen. "Bringing voters who have gone to the National Front back to the camp of the republic is also my job," Sarkozy said on France 3.

    Sarkozy's return to a hard-line course — a strategy that his advisers say he will now pursue until the first round of the election on April 22 — comes as the campaign entered its official stage Monday with the publication of the final list of candidates by the Constitutional Council. Starting Tuesday, television and radio stations are required to grant equal air time to all the candidates.

    In addition to Sarkozy, Royal, Bayrou and Le Pen, eight other presidential candidates — with a combined voting base of 10 to 15 percent — were approved. They included José Bové, the anti-globalization campaigner, and Marie-George Buffet, former leader of the French Communist Party.

    Royal made headlines Sunday when she promised to hold a referendum to curb the powers of the presidency and grant greater authority to Parliament, changes that would effectively replace the Fifth Republic, under which France has been governed since 1958.

    Bayrou, who has campaigned on a ticket promising a government of national unity inspired by coalitions in Germany and Italy, has also called for constitutional reform.

    Sarkozy has avoided the institutional debate and focused instead on his core issues. Manuel Aeschlimann, who analyzes public opinion for Sarkozy's party, the Union for a Popular Movement, had urged the minister to return to what he called the Sarkozy method: say what everyone thinks but no one dares to say.

    "He has to be himself — that is how he can win," Aeschlimann said. "He has to stay focused and concentrate right until the end of this campaign."

    The strategy seems to be working. The proposal for a ministry of immigration and national identity has won strong public support even as it has provoked criticism in Sarkozy's own camp, notably from the minister for equal opportunity, Azouz Begag, and from Simone Veil, a well-known Holocaust survivor and centrist politician who joined Sarkozy's presidential campaign less than two weeks ago.

    A poll published Monday showed Sarkozy increasing his lead over Royal and Bayrou. Sarkozy would win 31 percent of the vote in the first round, up 4 points from the last survey, according to the poll conducted by TNS Sofres, a polling group. Royal is given 24 percent, followed by Bayrou with 22 percent.

    But surprises have become a regular feature of French elections. In 2002, opinion polls did not foresee that Le Pen would eliminate Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the first round. In 2005, the no vote in the referendum on the European constitution also stunned many observers. The surprise Sarkozy may remember best was 1995, when President Jacques Chirac was the underdog who upset the prime minister at the time, Édouard Balladur, to succeed François Mitterrand.

    Campaigning last week in the town of Sisteron in the foothills of the Alps, Sarkozy got a rock star's welcome. Hundreds of expectant faces crowded behind the metal barriers waiting for his arrival. Teenagers waved pens and paper in a quest for autographs. One woman fainted amid the deafening cheers and was driven off in an ambulance.

    Sarkozy spent 10 minutes frantically shaking hands and blowing kisses into the crowd before vanishing up the red carpet into the local town hall. Minutes later, his hoarse voice thundered across the square, amplified by large speakers on the first-floor balcony: "The eternal France is here, in Sisteron."
    But a sense of triumph is conspicuously absent in the Gaullist camp. Behind the comforting statistics, an immaculately organized campaign and a disciplined and united party, there are doubts in Sarkozy's team.

    Nearly half of French voters say they remain undecided ahead of the April- May ballot and almost two-thirds say they trust neither the right nor the left, making this the most unpredictable race in a quarter-century, analysts say. While public opinion studies consistently give Sarkozy high marks on statesmanship and presidential stature, they also suggest that he inspires a sense of unease in a large part of the electorate that perceives him as too authoritarian.

    As one of Sarkozy's campaign strategists put it recently: "If you're behind in the polls, a high number of undecided voters is an opportunity; if you're ahead, it's a risk, a big risk."

    Those undecided voters were on the town square outside Sisteron City Hall. Past the first four or five rows of Sarkozy fans their skeptical glances soon appeared.

    "I just came to listen," said Pascal Cleraux, 42, a local resident who voted Socialist in 2002 and is now torn between Sarkozy and Bayrou. "I'm not particularly in favor of any candidate."
    So what's the chances of a right wing Nationalist government in France?
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

  • #2
    Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
    Nicolas Sarkozy returns to his hallmark style

    So what's the chances of a right wing Nationalist government in France?
    Won't this depend on how Le Pen does?
    Last time round he did manage to split the vote!
    When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin

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