France election: Nicolas Sarkozy pins last hopes on TV debate

A demonstrator compares Nicolas Sarkozy to Pinocchio during a May Day
march in Paris

In a television interview Monday, she suggested he “avoid falling into
one-upmanship”, make sure he “match him blow for blow”, and
stay on alert in the hours after the debate in order to manage the “media
interpretation”.

On Tuesday, Mr Sarkozy addressed a cheering crowd of tens of thousands in
Paris, as the French left and trade union movements, which back Hollande,
marched through the Left Bank towards a huge rally at Bastille.

“I say this to the unions. Put down the red flag and serve France!”
he declared, as supporters waved France’s tricolor banner.

Having spent the week since the first-round vote attempting to recruit
far-right sympathisers from Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant, anti-EU camp,
Sarkozy rounded on the left, accusing the unions of failing ordinary workers.

His campaign claimed 200,000 had turned out in bright spring sunshine to hear
him attempt to don the nationalist mantle of General Charles de Gaulle and,
while this figure was impossible to verify, the crowd was packed tight.

Promising a “new French model” based on hard work and
entrepreneurship, he vowed to abolish collective bargaining and build an
economy where “success will no longer be regarded with suspicion but as
an example”.

The crowd chanted “We’re going to win! We’re going to win!”, but if
Mr Sarkozy does pull it off it will be despite stagnant growth, high
unemployment and his having trailed Hollande in polls for more than six
months.

Mr Hollande, campaigning outside Paris, said he would seek to be a successor
to France’s last Socialist President Francois Mitterrand and accused Mr
Sarkozy of trying to divide France with his attacks on trade unions.

“When there are four million unemployed, when joblessness has increased
by more than a million, who defends the value of work and who is ruining it?”
he asked, hailing unions and promising growth and a higher minimum wage.

Hollande’s programme also includes the creation of 60,000 teaching jobs and
bringing the minimum retirement age back to 60 from 62.

Mr Sarkozy’s best hope of turning around the polls would be to recruit most of
Le Pen’s voters from the first round, when she won a record 18 per cent on a
ticket of protectionism, leaving the European Union and closing the borders.

But Miss Le Pen, hopeful that a Sarkozy loss would shatter the right and help
the National Front make gains in June’s legislative elections, scorned his
overture in the third big rally in Paris on Tuesday.

French far right party Front National candidate Marine Le Pen gestures
after delivering a speech in Paris

“Who between Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy will impose the
austerity plan in the most servile way? Who will submit the best to the
instructions of the IMF, the ECB or the European Commission?” she asked
ironically.

Miss Le Pen reminded her supporters that they are free to vote as they choose
on Sunday, but said that she would cast a blank ballot so as not to endorse
either candidate and strongly suggested that they should do the same.

Source: AFP

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