April 12, 2007
Looking youthful, confident, and bearing tough, conservative messages, notably on enforcing law-and-order, Nicolas Sarkozy remains the front-runner in France’s presidential election campaign. Flanked by eleven rivals from across France’s left-right political spectrum, he remains virtually certain to take the predominant slot in the first round of voting Sunday April 22. And he remains the choice of President George Bush. For months, the 52-year-old son of an immigrant father from Hungary who got into politics as a teenager, has been riding high in polls and commentary, actively determined to answer positively to the question posed by Time magazine nearly three years ago – “President Sarkozy?” That outcome will depend on the outcome of the second-round voting May 6 and who among his currently-favored, three main rivals – each confident of victory - will also be on the final ballot, amid uncertainties. Still riding high this week, as the respected Journal du Dimanche headlined “Sarkozy deepens the gap,” several, authoritative polls gave him a 28%-29.5% score; Socialist Ségolène Royal 22%-24%, centrist Francois Bayrou 19%-21% and far-right Jean-Marie Le Men 14%, while the eight remaining candidates scored between 0.5% and 4.5%. Given that an estimated 42% of all French voters remain undecided – many perplexed or indifferent to the many, complex, contradictory and plain silly claims and arguments – the percentage jumps to 56% among voters in their thirties - the outlook could change, making projections, interesting, doubtful or meaningless. Thus, while a typical, recent survey shows Sarkozy trouncing Royal in the runoff, (54%-46%) others show Bayrou defeating Sarkozy, or even Le Pen, supported by those determined to stop a conservative or far-right-wing leader from occupying the Elysée Palace for another five years, and controlling the legislature; French voters return to the polls June 10 and 17 to elect deputies to the National Assembly. Brushing off the polls, Le Pen, approaching the age of 79 in June, son of a Brittany fisherman, who became a lawyer, member of the National Assembly and the European Parliament, and in 1978 created a worldwide controversy with his claim that Nazi Germany’s concentration-camp gas chambers were a “detail” in the history of World War Two, also rejects surveys and much of the daily commentary in the national and foreign media. “The French never vote like the polls predict,” says the leader of the ultra-right National Front party who, in a surprising upset in the first round of the 2002 presidential election defeated former Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin; that was Le Pen’s fourth bid for the presidency, scoring nearly 18% in the second round against Chirac, who had wide, centrist and left-wing support. Backed up by his attractive 38-year-old daughter, Marine, who has been reaching out to younger, and women voters – with a hey, “we-are-not-extremists” message – Le Pen says he is confident of making it into the second round again. But today five years later, Sarkozy has cut into the Le Pen’s nationalistic, far-right turf, while constantly appealing to a traditional, conservative nation, beset by chronic unemployment, worsening unrest and riots and strikes, amid sagging confidence in the future and in European Union construction. That saga was highlighted two years ago by France’s surprise rejection, in a referendum, of a draft EU Constitution, along with Holland, yet approved by 18 other EU members, a still-controversial project Sarkozy, Royal and Bayrou want revived after the elections. Unequivocal, upbeat, in a mixture of solemn, tough, lofty, straight-talk language, and despite fierce counterattacks from Bayrou, Royal and underprivileged, suburban youth he termed “thugs,” Sarkozy pledges wide-ranging, business-friendly reform. A firm believer in free markets and national champions, he would curtail, if not eliminate, the controversial 35-hour-week, labor policy of the Jospin government; accelerate privatizations, legislate tax cuts and charges for business; reducing special pension privileges and the number of civil servants, notably teachers, while as he urges repeatedly, “making the French work longer and harder.” Paradoxically, Sarkozy would also accelerate crackdowns on illegal immigration extending to more rigorous controls and expulsions of immigrants from Africa and Central Europe.
Defying critics in his own camp, he recently proposed establishment of a ministry of immigration and national identity. The reinforced hard line surfaced several weeks ago as a response to a surge in polls favoring Bayrou and Royal.“Bringing voters who have gone to the National Front back to the camp of the republic is also my job,” Sarkozy said on a national television program, referring to his latest, controversial proposal for the new ministry; some critics say it reminds them of restrictions imposed on Nazi-occupied France by the collaborationist Vichy regime. Unlike Bayrou, Le Pen and Royal whose roots are in provincial France, Sarkozy was born in the middle-class 17th arrondisssement of Paris. His father, of a wealthy, aristocratic family, fled Budapest in 1948 as the Soviet-dominated Communist regime took power, and destitute, began life in Paris anew, simplifying his name to Paul Sarkozy from the Hungarian Pal Nagy Bosca y Sarkozy. After their divorce, while Nicolas was five, his mother became a lawyer to support their three sons; at 17, Nicolas was already active in conservative, youth organizations while studying political science and law, and rising steadily. At 28, he was elected mayor of the posh Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, which has provided a key, local power base. Over the years, that enabled him to win election and re-election as a member of the National Assembly, and as a close ally and protégé of Jacques Chirac, to take control of two key ministries – economy and finance and of the interior, responsible for the nation’s domestic security. Meantime, building on his popularity and a network of influential leaders in French society – CEOs, journalists, lawyers, film stars, singers and Chirac’s favorite Prime Minister Alain Juppé- Sarkozy gradually took control of the party Chirac founded in 1976 for his own presidential ambitions, the Union for a Popular Movement, the UMP. April of that year, 2004, also was the beginning of his building on friendly relations with the White House during a short, but highly-publicized visit to Washington, while minister of the economy and newly-elected UMP president. “Believe me: the French love the Americans…I am not afraid to say that I share many of the American values,” Sarkozy told the American Jewish Committee. Half-jokingly, noting an upcoming meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Sarkozy quipped:“I will ask my colleague from the ministry of foreign affairs how many black ambassadors have been appointed lately.” Two years later, visiting Washington as interior minister and clearly in the lead to succeed Chirac – himself barely on speaking terms with President George Bush for having diligently led European opposition to the war in Iraq – Sarkozy told a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution that he was committed to improving trans-Atlantic relations. “Our relations suffer from too much incomprehension, caused by a an occasional, deliberate lack of dialogue…we are children born of the same combat against totalitarianisms…” he said as he prepared for the highlight of his trip: a photo session with a friendly, supportive Bush in the White House, a rare, highly-publicized gesture for visiting political candidates from abroad. Following suit recently, Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair hosted a splashy welcome at 10 Downing Street; the candidate also pitched an estimated 52,000 registered voters in London, the largest group among some one million overseas French voters, double the number registered in 2002, according to the daily Le Monde. Back home, the critical, biting attacks have mounted steadily. A Royal adviser repeatedly described Sarkozy as an “American neo-conservative with a French passport.” Backtracking shortly afterwards in his only foreign policy news conference February 28, Sakozy then pledged a relationship with Washington based on “friendship” but ‘‘not submission,” citing his opposition to EU membership for Turkey which Bush strongly supports. Earlier this month, Sarkozy was forced to abruptly cancel a visit to a middle-class neighborhood in the city of Lyon amid noisy protests by young protesters of African and Arab descent, shouting he was not welcome. Posters attacked his earlier warnings that he would clean out young troublemakers in riot-hit, suburbs with a high-powered hose, describing them as “scum” and “thugs.” Openly hostile to his hardline reactions to the riots, Azouz Begag , his fellow-minister for equal opportunities – and of Algerian origin - was recently forced to resign under pressure from Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin. And in a book published April 10, he accused Sarkozy of having threatened to assault him in response to his criticism of the minister who outranked him, for using the word “thugs” to describe young delinquents. Meantime, Sarkozy created a nationwide controversy and drew heavy opposition, even from center-leaning conservatives by suggesting in a published debate that pedophilia and teenage suicides stem from genetic flaws. With his attractive, influential wife Cécilia at his side and ever-confident, Sarkozy presses on with his quest for the Elysée Palace. On April 22nd the first round of the French Presidential election will take place. The two candidates with the highest percentage will go on to compete in the May 6th election. |
