NICOLAS SARKOZY has pledged to balance France’s budget for the first time in 40 years if he wins a second term as president.
Publishing his election manifesto in Paris yesterday, Mr Sarkozy said “responsibility and authority” would be the themes of his presidency and warned that his chief rival, the socialist candidate François Hollande, risked leading France to economic ruin.
In his 34-page “Letter to the French people”, Mr Sarkozy said he would balance the budget – a feat not achieved by a French government since 1974 – within four years. That would require an adjustment of €53 billion, with three-quarters coming from spending cuts and a quarter from tax. Mr Sarkozy said the cuts would apply to “the state, social security and local authorities”.
At a 90-minute press conference that saw Mr Sarkozy sharpen his criticism of Mr Hollande, the president accused his rival of planning “a festival of new spending, as if the world, Europe and the crisis didn’t exist”.
“Do people really believe that, with 60,000 extra public servants, France and French companies will be better off,” he said, referring to Mr Hollande’s pledge to hire new teachers.
Mr Sarkozy’s manifesto is largely a recapitulation of previously announced plans, but includes a number of initiatives aimed at vital constituencies.
If he were re-elected, pensions would be paid on the first day of each month instead of the eighth day – an idea that would cost the state nothing and “change the daily lives of 15.5 million French pensioners”. He promised to freeze France’s annual contribution to the European Union at its current level of €19 billion. National Front candidate Marine Le Pen has repeatedly called for this payment to be gradually ended.
“Some countries in Europe are on the edge of a precipice today. We cannot refuse to make the historic choice of competitiveness, innovation and reducing public spending,” said Mr Sarkozy.
He compared Mr Hollande to François Mitterrand, the socialist former president, who spent heavily in the early years of his first term after 1981 but then changed course and embraced austerity. “In today’s world, it would take two days, not two years, to wreak havoc on five years’ worth of efforts,” he added.
Most opinion polls indicate that Mr Sarkozy has overtaken Mr Hollande in voting intentions for the first round on April 22nd, but the socialist still leads by about 55 per cent to Mr Sarkozy’s 45 per cent in a run-off.
The incumbent said the momentum was in his favour and called for a mass rally of the “silent majority” to support him on Place de la Concorde in Paris on April 15th. Mr Hollande has scheduled his own open air rally for the same day, a week before polling begins.
Asked who he might choose as prime minister, Mr Sarkozy declined to rule out appointing François Bayrou, leader of the centrist Mouvement Démocrate, whose support in the second round could be vital to his chances of re-election.
While Mr Sarkozy is coming under pressure on his right flank from Ms Le Pen, the socialist candidate is trying to fend off the resurgent campaign of the left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The Parti de Gauche candidate has reached 13 per cent in recent polls and drew tens of thousands of people to a symbolic “re-taking of the Bastille” in Paris last week.
His rise has caused concern in the Socialist Party, which has been obsessed with containing splits on the left ever since Jean-Marie Le Pen took advantage of a badly-divided left-wing vote in the 2002 election to reach the run-off.
Seeking to pre-empt Mr Sarkozy’s criticism of his economic policies yesterday, Mr Hollande said he would order a full audit of the public finances if he were elected. “We’ll have the Court of Auditors carry out an evaluation immediately ... and freeze certain spending once we have the results,” Mr Hollande said. Some commentators suggested the move was designed to prepare the ground for austerity measures that could be blamed on his predecessor’s stewardship of France’s debt and deficit.
“Sarkozy’s manifesto is his record of the past five years, only worse,” added Mr Hollande.
In a symbolic show of support for Mr Hollande, his former partner Ségolène Royal, who was the unsuccessful socialist presidential candidate in 2007, joined him on stage for the first time at a rally in Rennes on Wednesday night.
