Sarkozy fails to land knockout punch in testy French TV debate
Source: Agencies |
May 4, 2012, Friday
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FRENCH voters who watched the only televised debate before this weekend's presidential election appeared to emerge with two impressions: Nicolas Sarkozy, who trails in the polls, did not pull off the clear victory he needed, and Francois Hollande was surprisingly resilient in the bitter back and forths.
Pollsters, meanwhile, were compiling figures about how the debate could influence Sunday's voting. For months, their studies across the board have suggested that Hollande, the Socialist challenger, is likely to quash conservative President Sarkozy's hopes for re-election.
The ballot outcome will set a course for the next five years of this nuclear-armed country with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and could reshape the debate in the 17-nation eurozone - which Sarkozy's France has helped guide, along with Angela Merkel's Germany - on how best to restore troubled state finances and sluggish growth across the continent.
The top two French networks that co-hosted Wednesday night's debate estimated at least 19.5 million people, or about a third of France's population, tuned in.
Even the candidates admitted it was spirited. "I thought going in it would be bitter, and it was," Hollande told France-2 television yesterday. Sarkozy, on RTL radio, said he'd enjoyed the "strong" debate in which "we both didn't give too many concessions."
The verdict in French daily newspapers was mixed: Le Parisien headlined about a "harsh" debate, and conservative Le Figaro's front page read; "High Tension." Left-leaning Liberation wrote: "Hollande presided over the debate."
Hollande, who is known as mild mannered, yielded no ground in what was often a verbal slugfest, in which the two traded accusations about flawed claims by the other: Sarkozy once called his rival Hollande a "little slanderer," and repeatedly said he'd lied.
On the streets of Paris, the nearly three-hour clash was on many lips - though it was tough to tell how many minds might have been swayed over the debate performances, and how many have already been made up.
Critics of Sarkozy have often faulted him for his brash style, alleged chumminess with the rich, and inability to reverse France's tough economic fortunes and nearly double-digit jobless rate. He has defended his record as better than others amid state-debt crises and economic woes across Europe.
Mild-mannered Hollande, meanwhile, is often derided by critics as too indecisive and unwilling to make tough choices to cut a bloated state.
Joanna Daniel, a German citizen who has lived in France for decades, said many believed that Sarkozy "was supposed to be stronger in debate, but I think that Hollande defended himself well, so on that point I think he won."
Pollsters, meanwhile, were compiling figures about how the debate could influence Sunday's voting. For months, their studies across the board have suggested that Hollande, the Socialist challenger, is likely to quash conservative President Sarkozy's hopes for re-election.
The ballot outcome will set a course for the next five years of this nuclear-armed country with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, and could reshape the debate in the 17-nation eurozone - which Sarkozy's France has helped guide, along with Angela Merkel's Germany - on how best to restore troubled state finances and sluggish growth across the continent.
The top two French networks that co-hosted Wednesday night's debate estimated at least 19.5 million people, or about a third of France's population, tuned in.
Even the candidates admitted it was spirited. "I thought going in it would be bitter, and it was," Hollande told France-2 television yesterday. Sarkozy, on RTL radio, said he'd enjoyed the "strong" debate in which "we both didn't give too many concessions."
The verdict in French daily newspapers was mixed: Le Parisien headlined about a "harsh" debate, and conservative Le Figaro's front page read; "High Tension." Left-leaning Liberation wrote: "Hollande presided over the debate."
Hollande, who is known as mild mannered, yielded no ground in what was often a verbal slugfest, in which the two traded accusations about flawed claims by the other: Sarkozy once called his rival Hollande a "little slanderer," and repeatedly said he'd lied.
On the streets of Paris, the nearly three-hour clash was on many lips - though it was tough to tell how many minds might have been swayed over the debate performances, and how many have already been made up.
Critics of Sarkozy have often faulted him for his brash style, alleged chumminess with the rich, and inability to reverse France's tough economic fortunes and nearly double-digit jobless rate. He has defended his record as better than others amid state-debt crises and economic woes across Europe.
Mild-mannered Hollande, meanwhile, is often derided by critics as too indecisive and unwilling to make tough choices to cut a bloated state.
Joanna Daniel, a German citizen who has lived in France for decades, said many believed that Sarkozy "was supposed to be stronger in debate, but I think that Hollande defended himself well, so on that point I think he won."
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