French President Nicolas Sarkozy admitted publicly Thursday he will quit politics if he loses next month’s election, as his Socialist challenger pressed home his attacks on the incumbent’s record.
“I tell you, yes,” he replied when asked on a television programme if he would withdraw from public life if, as opinion polls predict, he loses to Socialist Francois Hollande in the two-round vote in April and May. But Sarkozy made clear he had not already thrown in the towel, announcing a raft of new measures after a week that saw his re-election campaign take a sharp turn to the right on integration and immigration issues.
He told BFMTV he was working on a new plan to help France’s underprivileged and unruly suburbs, a fund to help single mothers, and extra measures to stop people cheating on social security benefits. Sarkozy has failed to narrow the gap with Hollande — who has enjoyed a clear opinion poll lead for five months — and this week pulled out all the stops to revamp what many critics say has been a lacklustre campaign. In a marathon three-hour television interview on Tuesday, he declared that there were too many immigrants in France and that the country’s attempts to integrate foreign arrivals into its culture and society had become paralysed.
That statement came as French Jewish and Muslim leaders united to complain they were being used as pawns in a presidential election increasingly dominated by bitter disputes over national identity and ritual slaughter. Sarkozy picked up on a debate about halal meat — initially launched by the anti-immigrant National Front leader Marine Le Pen — and declared that its spread in butchers’ shops was a major problem for the French. That fuelled accusations that he is pinning his hopes on catching up on Hollande — in what appears to be shaping up as a clear two-horse race — in winning back voters who lean towards the National Front.
Others accused him of being sidetracked by side issues at a time when France is struggling to generate growth and to escape the eurozone financial crisis. Hollande, who has never held a ministerial post and whose ex-partner Segolene Royal lost to Sarkozy in 2007, this week pressed home his attacks on his rival’s record in five years at the Elysee palace. He mocked Sarkozy’s plan — announced Tuesday — to slap a new tax on the profits of listed companies which he said would bring in up to three billion euros ($3.9 billion) a year to help cut the public deficit. “Nicolas Sarkozy has realised at the end of his term that some of the country’s biggest companies … escaped paying tax,” he said Wednesday. “It would have been a better idea to do that in 2007,” said the 57-year-old, who hopes to become the first Socialist president since Francois Mitterrand was re-elected in 1988.
