“NICOLAS PRÉSIDENT,” came the chant from tens of thousands of people gathered in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower yesterday to hear Nicolas Sarkozy fight for his political life.
“I will fight to the last second of the last minute, because I love France,” he said to raucous cheers and an ocean of tricolours fluttering in brilliant sunshine.
With just days to go until Sunday’s run-off for the French presidency, and with polls pointing to a win for the socialist François Hollande, the incumbent needs to rally large numbers of far-right and centrist voters, along with many of those who abstained in the first round, if he is to stand a chance.
In Paris yesterday he implored the crowd to use the last three days of campaigning to “explain, convince and mobilise” voters behind his cause.
Sarkozy had angered the Socialist Party and trade unions by organising a rally on Labour Day, one of the most important on the left-wing calendar, and calling it a celebration of “real work” (he later retracted the term). As well as the rival demonstrations for the two candidates, the National Front held its own annual Joan of Arc march elsewhere in the city, turning the streets of the capital into a political battleground on a normally sleepy public holiday.
“He seems to me the only person who can get us through this crisis,” said Thierry Gaudy, a middle-aged Parisian who proclaimed himself solidly behind Sarkozy. “Maybe he didn’t do everything he could have, but I’m Anyone But Hollande, that’s for sure.”
Hollande has pledged to balance France’s budget by 2017 – a year later than Sarkozy – but places greater emphasis on taxes to achieve that goal and wants to raise spending on education.
Gaudy was dismissive of Hollande’s pledges, describing his election promise to hire 60,000 new teachers as untenable, and said he was certain the incumbent would turn it around in the final days. “We’ll win it, just.”
Yves Oblin, who works as a driver for a company executive, admitted to feeling less confident, but he was no less convinced of Sarkozy’s superiority as a candidate. “I’m centre-right, but I think you should share money only when you have it. When a country is in deficit, you first have to fix the accounts,” he said.
“Hollande hasn’t done anything. His experience is zero. He wasn’t a minister, nor mayor of a big city.”
To win on Sunday, Sarkozy will need at least 60 per cent of those who voted for far-right leader Marine Le Pen, and 40 per cent of those who chose the centrist François Bayrou, to switch their support to him.
As widely expected, Le Pen did him no favours yesterday when she said she would vote blank on Sunday and refused to endorse either candidate.
In a fiery speech to thousands of supporters, Le Pen mocked Sarkozy’s calls for more border control and labelled him and Hollande lackeys of the European Central Bank, IMF and European Commission. Whoever won on Sunday would become “an employee of the ECB”, she said.
With a parliamentary election to come in June, the National Front believes it can break through and win seats in the lower house, especially if a heavy defeat for Sarkozy plunges his centre-right UMP into disarray.
For his own Labour Day message, Hollande spoke at the tomb of the socialist prime minister Pierre Bérégovoy – who shot himself on May 1st, 1993 – and derided the president’s stress on work when unemployment was at a 12-year high.
Hollande has positioned himself as the antithesis to Sarkozy, highlighting his low-key manner and simple tastes to remind voters of the incumbent’s impetuous, mercurial streak.
This didn’t cut it with Catherine Cumunel, a mother of teenage children from a Paris suburb, who came to show her support for the sitting president yesterday. She didn’t agree with the socialist that euthanasia should be allowed in certain circumstances, she said, but above all she just didn’t think he had the stature for the job.
“Sarkozy takes decisions, he has charisma. He has impressed me at international and European level – he has experience,” said Cumunel.
“I like his pugnacity, his capacity to react. I quite like his personality, whereas François Hollande is very woolly.”
