The final week of electioneering for the 6 May Presidential vote between incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy and Social Francois Hollande is turning into a foul-mouthed brawl between right and left in France. Both sides are running populist campaigns instead of providing solutions to the country’s very troubled economy worsened by mounting job losses, recession and stagnation in Europe.
Sarkozy has accused Hollande of “lying from morning till night” and being a soft, indecisive and “useless” person who has nothing to show for his 30 years in politics. One of his associates called unmarried Hollande’s woman companion, “a rottweiler”, causing a storm of criticism from those who think that picking on a wife or companion should be off limits.
Hollande has tried to stay above the invective but his lieutenants are portraying Sarkozy as being unpatriotic and pathetic in his deference to Germany, like le marechal (Marshal) Phillipe Petain who headed the French government that collaborated with the Nazi invaders during World War II. Hollande’s spokesperson has called Sarkozy a cross between Italy’s self-important and womanizing Silvio Berlusconi and power hungry Vladimir Putin, who is destroying democracy in Russia.
Some from the Hollande camp are accusing Sarkozy’s party of seeking about $80 million from Libya’s late Muammar Kaddafi before the French elections five years ago. In another attack, Dominique Strauss Kahn, who was expected to be the Socialist candidate instead of Hollande, blamed Sarkozy for using covert means to have him arrested in New York for alleged sexual assault against a hotel chamber maid in 2011. The accusations were dismissed but not before he became unelectable. Such charges may be unfounded by the innuendos are be enough to turn some voters against him from both right and left.
Everyone is waiting with bated breath for the denouement during the final straight starting tomorrow, 30 April. So far, the Sarkozy camp has not found much nasty mud to sling at the bland Hollande but it is searching feverishly. Hollande has consistently led opinion polls although he has no administrative experience, not even as a town hall mayor. His camp seems to have successfully portrayed Sarkozy as a friend of the rich and unsympathetic to the poor, unemployed and immigrants. It is brushing over his achievements in several stints as a mayor and minister, and now President.
Surprisingly, just one debate is scheduled between the two candidates on 2 May because the decorous Hollande refuses more direct confrontations with Sarkozy, who is a street fighter. Tempers are high because the face-off comes during Europe’s worst economic troubles and a growing revulsion among French voters for the pain caused by membership of the Eurozone.
Tensions at near breaking point on economic austerity versus economic growth and between staying close to the US-led NATO alliance or stepping away a little. The election could be a watershed for France and the European Union because a Hollande victory would move the country towards policy ruptures with Germany, Europe’s paramount power which insists on further austerity in all EU countries except itself.
It will also bring discord with Washington because Socialists deeply dislike the presence of French troops in Afghanistan and the possibility of military action against Iran to end its probable bid for nuclear weapons.
A Sarkozy victory will keep France in the German and American folds but it could push the country towards far-right anti-immigration and anti-Islam policies. His rhetoric has far surpassed current or past mainstream politicians who are ashamed of leaning so far right. A main reason is that Sarkozy cannot win without getting most of the 6 million votes that went to the far right Marine Le Pen in the first round on 22 April. She took 17.9 per cent compared with Hollande’s 28 percent and Sarkozy’s 27 percent. The numbers caused shock because an incumbent President has never finished second in the first round and the far right has never finished so high.
The European economic crisis has already claimed the governments of Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands and may be on the way to making France its next casualty. Both Sarkozy and Hollande are campaigning on populist platforms as if France can muddle through the structural problems of unaffordable health and social welfare, booming public debt and fiscal regimes that inhibit entrepreneurship and economic growth. The frivolous tone is set by a Hollande proposal to achieve equality by imposing a 75 percent income tax on those earning more than $1.3 million.
The copyrighted cartoon by Hajo de Reijger, The Netherlands, is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.