Sarkozy woos far-right in bid to upstage Hollande
Source: Agencies |
April 24, 2012, Tuesday
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Print Edition
FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed directly to far-right voters yesterday with pledges to get tough on immigration and security, after a record showing in a first round election by the National Front made it a potential kingmaker.
Polls show center-right leader Sarkozy on course to become the first French president to lose a bid for re-election in more than 30 years, trailing Socialist challenger Francois Hollande ahead of a May 6 runoff.
Hollande pipped Sarkozy in Sunday's 10-candidate first round by 28.6 percent to 27.2 percent, but National Front leader Marine Le Pen stole the show, surging to 17.9 percent, the biggest tally a far-right candidate has ever managed.
Her performance mirrored advances across the continent by anti-establishment Eurosceptical populists from Amsterdam and Vienna to Helsinki and Athens as the euro-zone's grinding debt crisis deepens anger over government spending cuts and unemployment.
"National Front voters must be respected," Sarkozy told reporters as he left his campaign headquarters in Paris. "They voiced their view. It was a vote of suffering, a crisis vote. Why insult them? I have heard Mr Hollande criticizing them."
The unpopular Sarkozy, the first sitting president to be forced into second place in the first round of a re-election bid, now faces a difficult balancing act to attract both the far-right and centrist voters he needs to stay in office. Returning to the campaign trail, he hammered home promises to toughen border controls, tighten security on the streets and keep industrial jobs in France - signature issues for Le Pen at a time of anger over immigration, violent crime and unemployment running at a 12-year high.
Polls published on Sunday predicted Hollande would win the runoff with between 53 and 56 percent of votes.
But the strong showing of Le Pen, gravel-voiced 43-year-old daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, offered Sarkozy a glimmer of hope by suggesting there are more votes up for grabs on the right than had been thought.
Polls show center-right leader Sarkozy on course to become the first French president to lose a bid for re-election in more than 30 years, trailing Socialist challenger Francois Hollande ahead of a May 6 runoff.
Hollande pipped Sarkozy in Sunday's 10-candidate first round by 28.6 percent to 27.2 percent, but National Front leader Marine Le Pen stole the show, surging to 17.9 percent, the biggest tally a far-right candidate has ever managed.
Her performance mirrored advances across the continent by anti-establishment Eurosceptical populists from Amsterdam and Vienna to Helsinki and Athens as the euro-zone's grinding debt crisis deepens anger over government spending cuts and unemployment.
"National Front voters must be respected," Sarkozy told reporters as he left his campaign headquarters in Paris. "They voiced their view. It was a vote of suffering, a crisis vote. Why insult them? I have heard Mr Hollande criticizing them."
The unpopular Sarkozy, the first sitting president to be forced into second place in the first round of a re-election bid, now faces a difficult balancing act to attract both the far-right and centrist voters he needs to stay in office. Returning to the campaign trail, he hammered home promises to toughen border controls, tighten security on the streets and keep industrial jobs in France - signature issues for Le Pen at a time of anger over immigration, violent crime and unemployment running at a 12-year high.
Polls published on Sunday predicted Hollande would win the runoff with between 53 and 56 percent of votes.
But the strong showing of Le Pen, gravel-voiced 43-year-old daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, offered Sarkozy a glimmer of hope by suggesting there are more votes up for grabs on the right than had been thought.
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