Jew World Order

The campaign in fact was about discovering Mr Hollande, a veteran of the
political scene who until tonight was a blank sheet for most voters. His
reputation as a grey figure, a bit flabby – his colleagues refer to him as
Flanby, a brand of French flan – with no noticeable charisma has been
praised by his supporters as an antidote to Mr Sarkozy’s ‘bling’ presidency.
But others fear that he is too soft to cope with the rigours of the job.

In that sense Mr Hollande will have benefited from the debate. For a start,
voters saw him defending successfully his questionable policies on tax,
Europe and immigration. But they also saw him keep his cool, and stand up to
Mr Sarkozy’s hectoring. And he found a compelling way of describing the kind
of president he would be, privileging the dignity of the office and
implicitly distancing himself from the interfering practices of Mr Sarkozy.
The debate is likely to seal a remarkable victory.

22:50 And we’re onto closing statements, last chance for both men to
make their appeals to the French people.

Hollande

This debate has been useful. We don’t have the same project, and the
balance sheet of Nicolas Sarkozy has been described as being particularly
heavy. In 2007, in the same debate, he said: ‘I want to be judged by my
results’. Each person will judge what was done and what was not.

To change, that means to bring our country back to the grand cause. We must
find ourselves again in the only value that is worth something: youth.”

We will need all the force of France. The choice on Sunday is to continue
with you, Nicolas Sarkozy, or change. I don’t want to bring fear, even not
even that of your own re-election. What I hope is that French people take
back confidence and hope.

–

Sarkozy

I did not put on a clothes peg to address the French people who voted for
Marine Le Pen. I tell them that I heard their call to nation, to borders, to
authority. The heart of the campaign of François Bayrou was the gold
standard, but Mr Hollande doesn’t want that. I want to adopt it, if needed
by referendum.

“To all those who abstained: don’t let the others vote for you. The
question, it’s you, what direction must France take? What future for our
children? In a difficult world, we must know how to take decisions and
assume responsibilities. If I am the candidate, it is with the passion of
France and I hope to lead you in this difficult situation.”

22.45: A slightly more sober tone is struck as the candidates discuss
the crisis in Mali,
where a military junta recently overthrew the government, creating a power
vacuum that’s allowed Islamist rebels to run riot. And an interesting
distinction on Afghanistan:

Hollande calls for French troops in Afghanistan to come home: “I
consider that now, French troops do not need to stay much longer in
Afghanistan. That could have been done much sooner. We must bring back our
combat troops at the end of 2012.”

Sarkozy replies that the Taliban cut off the hands of little girls who
wear nail polish, and says French troops must disengage in increments. “We
have given the responsibility for Kabul back to the Afghans. To leave this
year is materially impossible. That would be to renege on our agreements.
France has allies, France has honour! So if I am re-elected we will leave
the responsibility of the country to Afghanistan at the end of 2013.

22.43: Sarkozy seems to be coming apart as we barrel through the final
segment of the debate.

Excellent rhetorical sequence by Hollande: “I, as President will
respect the French…” as he lists what he intends to change

Sarkozy is really clutching at straws bringing Dominique Strauss-Kahn into
the equation. That’s a real sign of desperation.

He calls Hollande a “little liar”. As we reach the final
straight, Hollande is looking increasingly confident, and I almost feel
sorry for Sarkozy. He’s looking like a tired, frustrated little boy. His
nervous tics are worse than ever. I think Hollande’s combativity has taken
him by surprise.

22.35: Hollande earlier went after Sarkozy on his handling of the
European debt crisis and says that Sarkozy got “nothing” from
Germany despite his diplomatic efforts:

22.27: Brace yourselves, says Henry Samuel. We’re going to be
here for a while.

We’ve been going for two and a half hours with no end in sight! They have
not even got to foreign affairs yet.

Sarkozy has so far failed to land any knock out punches and Hollande got
through the toughest part on immigration and non-EU nationals in local
elections without any major scrapes. Sarkozy scored points by pointing out
that the Socialists abstained in the vote to ban the burka. “When it
required courage to pass this legislation on the burka you were absent,”
he said.

Once again, Sarkozy calls Hollande a “liar”, “arrogant”.
“That’s slander,” he replies when Hollande says he failed to
respect the independence of the judiciary.

22.25: Hollande gives an idealistic mini-speech on the role of the
presidency. “I want to be a president who respects French people, who
doesn not want to be president of everything, boss of everything and
responsible for nothing. I will not be the boss of the majority.”

But Sarkozy’s reply is instant and withering: “The function of the
President is not a normal function, and the situation is not a normal one.
Your normality is not the top priority.” He mocks that Hollande’s
remarks, saying it brings a tear to his eye.

(This all sounds even harsher in French)

22.20: We’re going back and forth on Fessenheim, a nuclear power
plant in Alsace. It’s one of the oldest plants in Europe and around 100,000
people live within a couple of miles. Hollande argues it’s a safety risk and
should be closed. Sarkozy demands to know how he’ll replace the 8,000 jobs
that it supports.

“French nuclear power is the safest in the world. A Fukushima is a
problem of tsunami, and I do not think at the borders of the Rhine there is
a risk of a tsunami,” says Sarko. Interestingly, the UMP representative
from Alsace has publicly called for the plant’s closure

22.10: Both men, not exactly hip kids at 57, have been mispronouncing
iPad as “zipad”, like some all-useful combination of a Zippo and
an iPad. The internet responds thus:

21.58: Sarkozy is defending his ban on the burqa, saying that Hollande
didn’t even have the courage to oppose othe law in the National Assembly and
decided to abstain. “You’re like a weather vane that turns on top of a
church steeple,” he sneers at his opponent.

21.56: Sarkozy’s pursuit of Le Pen voters may be about to bite
him. The candidates are now discussing the right to vote for legal aliens
and it’s turned into a discussion of Muslim immigrants. Sarko makes a feeble
brag in defence of his record on French Muslims: “France treats muslims
in France better than Christians are treated in the East”.

He angrily inisists on integration, saying: “The countries of Northern
Africa are Muslim, from the other coast of the Mediterranean. The community
tensions come from who, from where? The problems of the French republic come
from the absolute necessity of having an Islam of France and not an Islam in
France.”

–

21.55: The hot topic of immigration is now up. Sarkozy has been
accused of stoking the fires of France’s race problem with rhetoric about
immigrants in order to win some of the 6.4 million votes that went to Marine
Le Pen and her National Front (FN) party.

Hollande breaks the issue down into economic migrants and asylum
seekers. On immigration for economic reasons: “Today, we must limit it.
I propose that each year in Parliament there would be a discussion on the
admissible number of peple for economic reasons, he said, adding that asylum
seekers had to wait too long for a decision on their future, which he would
want to reduce to six months.

Sarkozy is far more hardline. He says he wants to halve to 90,000 the
number of ‘titres de séjours’, or short term visas, and impose a French
language exam for new immigrants from the age of 16 years upwards. Migrants
would have to live in France for 10 years to receive welfare payments, after
paying taxes for five.

21.46: Benedict Brogan is impressed with the breadth of policy, if not
the tone, of Le Debat so far:

21.42: In the Anglophone sphere, all this talk of croissance, an
increase, is causing stomachs to rumble.

21.40: In the third chapter of the debate, on Europe,
Hollande makes his displeasure known on the topic of Sarkozy’s close
ties with Germany and Angela Merkel, and their actions together in
tackling the Eurozone crisis. He concedes that some attention paid to the
deficit was necessary, but says that: “There was not any dimension for
growth, we are imposing to these countries a generalised austerity: Spain,
Greece, Italy, Portugal…”

–

21.35: Sarkozy’s party have put out a timeline
of action taken by the President in the face of the financial
crises. It casts Sarko in a heroic light in every instance from the collapse
of Lehman Brothers to the most recent Greek bailout. A less sympathetic
reading would show a President buffeted by forces well beyond his control.

21.30: Hollande casts himself as the friend of the working man. He says
he would protect those whose jobs involve hard labour, but that with
Sarkozy’s pension reforms passed in 2010 these workers could expect to start
work at 18 and only stop at 62. He says he would allow them to retire at 60.
Protests against pension reforms brought
millions to the streets in the autumn of 2010.

21.25: The Socialists are gloating on Twitter, caustically
writing: “Happily for Mr Sarkozy, there’s only one debate”.

21.20: The gloves, if they were ever on, have long been discarded,
writes Henry Samuel:

This is turning into a fist fight with Sarkozy accusing Hollande of being
a liar at least twice.

“You are not able to hold an argument without using such terms? It’s
no doubt in your vocabulary a complement,” responds Hollande.

It’s no prettier on the issues of taxes. “You want more less rich
people, I want less poor people,” says Sarkozy. Hollande hits straight
back: “With you there are more poor people and the rich have got richer.”

Sarkozy says “we have the highest taxes in Europe,” adding that
Hollande’s “spending madness” would be the ruin of France. “As
soon as the unions ask you something you are incapable of saying no. Do you
contest the fact that we have the highest taxes in Europe?”

Hollande replied that Sarkozy has in fact increased tax, so has no leg to
stand on.

–

21.18: They’ve both dug in on the issue of taxes, arguing whether Sarko’s
administration has coddled the rich or squeezed them.

Hollande: “You have increased the tax burden by nearly one and a
half points during your five-year term. It is you who have raised them and
now you complain.”

Sarkozy: “In the face of the crisis, I took decisions that
reinforced taxes for the richest. Support that, is what I reply to you. Your
reasoning is incoherent.”

21.16: Interesting analysis of the challenger’s style: “Francois
Hollande has the mind of a boxer, never below the belt, but no mercy”

21.15: Yet the Socialist has just found an elegant and populist
formulation for his Left-wing views: “You gave cheques from the public
treasury to the most fortunate. I recommend that the most fortunate should
give cheques to the public treasury.”

21.12: Hollande needs to be better on hitting the pocketbook issues so
important to voters, writes Benedict Brogan.

Energy is a hot topic. Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly charged Francois
Hollande with wanting to dismantle France’s nuclear power, which provides
90pc of its energy and – he says – saves consumers 35pc on their bills. Mr
Hollande hasn’t rebutted it yet, which is dangerous. The President has also
accused him of demagoguery by offering to freeze petrol prices, saying the
consumer will pay. Again, Mr Hollande has not succeeded in answering the
charge effectively, on an issue that matters to voters.

21.04: Interestingly, in 2007 it was Sarkozy who kept it cool, goading
his then-opponent Ségolène Royal into losing her temper:

She was speaking about that encounter earlier, and not recalling it fondly: “He
didn’t look at me, he only looked at the journalists. There was always
something in the way he held himself [that held] the bile of condescension”.

21.00: We’ve reached the half-way mark. Henry Samuel says
Sarkozy is hot and Hollande is cool but the Socialist seems to have edge.

One hour into the debate, it has to be said that Hollande is looking
disarmingly calm and collected, while Sarkozy looks stressed and on the
defensive.

That said, he has got in some good punches. “You want to block petrol
prices? Two centimes less for petrol is one billion more in deficit. Is it
worth it?,” asked Sarkozy.

To allow the French to think one can control gas and petrol prices, nobody
can believe that.

Also, he was convincing when saying that French growth has been the highest
in Europe bar Germany. Hollande weirdly replied that America had higher
debt. In Europe?

20.56: Sarkozy has an odd habit of speaking with shoulders. They rise
and fall with him, flaring up in indignation and slumping in annoyance
whenever his oppoent speaks. He leans across the table, which is prudently
far too wide for the two men to be able throttle eachother over.

20.55: They’re sparring over the national minimum wage and the age-old
question of whether it drives up unemployment. Sarkozy, sometimes
nicknamed “l’Américain”, for his somewhat un-French love of
freemarkets, says it does. “Less than 15% of people are on the minimum
wage. Are you going to increase it? Then you will take people away from
companies.”

20.50: Benedict Brogan files from Paris on the President’s artful
half-truths:

Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to knock holes in Francois Hollande’s economics
policies. He’s also accused him of wanting to get rid of nuclear power,
which Mr Hollande didn’t rebut though it isn’t quite true. Mr Sarkozy is
trying to portray his opponent as innumerate. His main line of attack is:
your policy is more taxes, more spending, more debt and there isn’t another
country in Europe that backs that.

20.46: Some of the early moments. Speaking with a combination of wry
amusement and immense frustration, Sarkozy lectures his opponent. Hollande
rocks back in his seat at the President’s attempt to “play the victim”.

–

20.45: Hollande is going after Sarkozy over his alleged complacency. “You’re
always content with yourself. No matter what happens you’re always content,”
he sneers at the President.

20.43: A perennial Socialist favourite, the 35-hour working week, is
considered by the candidates. Hollande says: “What we are seeing
is the dismantling of the principle of the working week.”

Sarkozy replies: “I believe that it is normal to take
responsibility as President of the La Republique. Trusting people in modern
economy in a modern world. Are you going to say that this is a class
struggle, even in a smaller company of 40-50 people?”

Sarkozy wants to create more flexible working hours and allow bosses to give
workers overtime in order to earn more money if they choose, but French
Socialists see this as the thin end of the wedge when it comes to workers’
rights.

20.39: The sparks and punches are flying, Henry Samuel
writes:

This is a very tense debate. Both are desperately trying to keep their
cool, but there’s considerable electricity in the air.

The blows rained down early on in the debate when Mr Hollande said: “You
think for five years you have brought the French together and not divided
them, but I don’t pit public and private workers against each other.”

“For the past five years I have had only one idea in mind: to avoid
violence…I never had to withdraw a text that would have wounded or created
a civil war in our country,” said Mr Sarkozy.

“If there has been no violence in the past five years, it’s down to
French society,” said Mr Hollande.

“When I was compared to Franco, Laval, Pétain, even Hitler, you didn’t say
a word,” Mr Sarkozy said of nicknames some Left-wing media gave the
President after his bid to woo the far-Right.

“You will have trouble passing yourself off as a victim,” Mr Hollande
responded.

20.35: Kate Day, our Social Media Editor, has been keeping an eye on
the Twitter war and it looks like #voteHollande
is outstripping #avecSarkozy.

20.30: Benedict Brogan, the Daily Telegraph’s Deputy Editor,
emails from Paris on an ugly opening quarter:

The opening blasts about character are telling. Nicolas Sarkozy has
accused Francois Hollande of tolerating the extraordinary abuse hurled at
the President during the campaign – he’s been compared to the leaders of
collaborationist Vichy France “and why not Hitler?” It’s set a
bitter, angry tone for the debate.

20.25: The questions turn to unemployment. Hollande says that
under Sarkozy unemployment has increased, and that 3 million French
people have “no work whatsoever”.

He adds: “You said that if unemployment didn’t go down to 5% you would
have failed. So, you have failed.” Hollande concedes the economic
crisis will have affected this figure, but adds that “Unemployment
increased more than in Genrmany where it is 6.5%.”

Sarkozy counters this attack by listing the rise in unemployment in different
European countries, adding that on average it increased by 30.2%, but 18.7%
in France.

20.20: The tone has become nasty almost immediately, with both taking
swipes at eachother’s internal party machines. Sarkozy’s brings up Axel
Kahn, a Socialist candidate for local government in Paris who compared,
the President’s May Day rally to the Nazis’ Nuremberg rallies. “Is this
the spirit of togetherness?” he demands.

20.17: Hollande jabs at Sarkozy’s ambivalent relationship
with the with far-right “I’m from the left, I accept it. You’re from
the right, you can accept it or not.”

–

20.15: The first blows are on who can unite France in a time of
economic hardship and uncertainty, Henry Samuel reports:

Sarkozy, combative, said his rival’s introduction was “classic”,
but that this must be a moment of “authenticity”. France has no
right to get it wrong. We are facing not a crisis, but crises. Bringing
people together is very nice, but one must also have acts.

The pair then tussle over who will bring the French together. Sarkozy said
Hollande was partisan, choosing unions and not representing all French.

Hollande hit back: “You think for five years you have brought the
French together and not divided them, but I don’t pit public and private
workers against each other.”

“I never had to withdraw a text that would have wounded or created a
civil war in our country,” said Sarkozy.

20.12: Sarko’s political aides are aggressively echoing their
boss on Twitter:

20.10: Sarkozy makes an emotional appeal directly to the viewers
at home. “I want this to be a moment of truth, for the French people,
from the bottom of our hearts this will be an historical decision.

At the end of these 2 hrs, I want people to be able to make up their minds.
This must be a moment of democracy when the french turn off their tvs and
they say they played it honest, they were on the level.”

20.07: Hollande pitches himself as the candidate of justice and rassemblement,
or “togetherness”, compared to the more divisive Sarko.

“I will be the President for the recovery, France has fallen behind. I
want the president who will restore production and growth. I want to be the
President who brings the French together.”

20.00: Here we go. Fittingly Hollande is on the Left and Sarkozy on the
right with the two moderators – Laurence Ferrari of TF1 and David
Pujadas of France 2 – in the middle. Beginning with brief opening
statements.

19.58: Several of the elite of the Socialist Party (PS) were invited to
watch the debate in the office of Martine Aubry, the party’s First
Secretary. “Look at the debate and prepare the response. This is the
pack behind our candidate,” she said, promising an American-style rapid
response to the debate’s developments.

19.54: Here’s a snap of the set, with large clocks to keep both of the
relatively verbose candidates on track.

^{Picture by Laurence
Ferrari}

19.45: The challenge in this second round for both candidates is how to
court the extreme-left and extreme-right voters who shunned them in the
first round. For Sarko the hill looks a lot steeper. Polling indicates that
among those who voted National Front in the first round, only about
50 per cent now back Sarkozy. By contrast, Hollande is expected to win about
80 per cent of voters from Jean-Luc Melenchon, candidate of the
far-left coalition Left Front.

19.37: Here’s a slightly anxious-looking Sarko arriving with
wife Carla Bruni at his side. He tells the waiting journalists: “We
are going to debate for two hours, I am not going to start now.”
Undeterred, a reporter asked him how he was feeling. “Like a man about
to go into a debate,” he shoots back.

–

19.35: The two contenders have now arrived arrived in Saint-Denis,
just north of Paris, for the debate. France’s two main television channels –
TF1 and France2 – are both carrying the debate live.

19.20: Intriguingly, this isn’t the first time the pair have gone
head-to-head in debate. Here they are in 1995 clashing on immigration. Hollande
looks a little portly while the impish Sarkozy seems supiciously
unchanged.

–

19.15: From Paris, our own Henry Samuel sets the stage:

Nicolas Sarkozy is pinning his dwindling hopes of re-election in an
all-out verbal assault on his Socialist rival François Hollande tonight, as
the two rivals clash in a marathon televised duel seen as the highpoint of
the battle for the French presidency.

At least twenty million French – almost a third of the population – are due
to tune in to see whether Mr Sarkozy would make good his pledge to “flush
out of the woods” his wily Socialist opponent – who Sarkozy aides dub “the
eel” in the do-or-die offensive.

Mr Hollande promised to rise above the fray, saying his rival was like a
boxer who “insults and spits on his adversary and who once in the ring
ends up getting hammered.”

“Frankly, the only question which needs to be asked is, do the French
want the same failed policies of the last five years? Rising unemployment,
weak growth, debts and deficits,” he asked.

The stakes are high for Mr Sarkozy as defeat in the second round runoff on
Sunday would make him the first president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing in
1981 to fail in a bid for re-election.

Gaining ground on Mr Hollande in the polls but still with a seven point
deficit, the Right-winger’s best hope of snatching improbable victory is a
“knock out” verbal punch in the lone two-and-a-half-hour debate.

19.05 In line with French tradition, this is the only debate between
the two men, who both cleared the election’s first round on April 22. Sarkozy,
who trailed by around 500,000 votes, tried to get Hollande to agree
to three debates, insisting gallantly: “The French have a right to
known. Francois Hollande mustn’t flee!”

19.00: Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the debate in Paris,
where Nicolas Sarkozy’s hopes of holding on to the Elysée rest on
tonight’s performance. He’s currently trailing Francois Hollande, his
socialist opponent, by around seven points and running out of time before
Sunday’s election. Can Sarko’s performance tonight turn things around?