Posted on 04/14/2007 3:11:31 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
PARIS (Reuters) - Rivals accused right-wing presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy of cosying up to far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen on Friday in a cynical electoral tactic.
Socialist Segolene Royal said the former interior minister was negotiating a secret pact with Le Pen's National Front, after a close Sarkozy aide called for a measure of proportional representation in June National Assembly elections.
The National Front says the current voting system is a scandal because it excludes from parliament a party whose candidate won almost 17 percent of the 2002 presidential vote.
All mainstream parties except Sarkozy's ruling UMP have called for some measure of PR, even though it would probably lead to National Front members of parliament.
Green candidate Dominique Voynet said the idea floated by Sarkozy's close ally Brice Hortefeux in Friday's Le Figaro daily had sinister undertones ahead of the April 22 first round vote.
"I hope the conditions will be right to prevent Nicolas Sarkozy from becoming president," she told France 2 television.
"His team's flirting with proportional representation shows that contacts with the National Front have gone deep and that worries me enormously."
Royal accused Hortefeux of "secretly negotiating with the National Front" over proportional representation.
However Sarkozy himself downplayed the remarks, saying on a visit to Meaux near Paris that Hortefeux was entitled to his opinion but adding: "I am not bound by these declarations."
Outgoing President Jacques Chirac refused to have any dealings with Le Pen, whom he beat with 82 percent in a 2002 run-off ballot. But Sarkozy has campaigned loudly to draw National Front supporters back into the mainstream fold and attacked the left for stigmatizing Le Pen voters.
RETURN TO FOLD
Sarkozy veered right after centrist Francois Bayrou surged into contention by drawing off support from Royal. Polls suggest Bayrou could beat Sarkozy if he makes it to a May 6 run-off ballot, attracting voters worried by Sarkozy's hardline image.
With just nine days to polling, the RG police intelligence service denied local media reports it had conducted a private poll showing Royal would be eliminated in the first round, with Sarkozy facing off against Bayrou or more likely Le Pen.
Michel Rocard, a former Socialist prime minister, urged Royal to strike a pact with Bayrou before polling day.
"Isolated, neither them nor us have a chance to battle the coalition between Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Marie Le Pen," he wrote in an opinion piece in the Le Monde daily.
"But united with the Greens, the social-democratic left and the democratic-social centre constitute a majority in the country," Rocard wrote in Le Monde daily. "And in two weeks, it can become a real majority."
The PR row follows an exchange of personal jibes between Le Pen and Sarkozy over the past week which analysts said reflected a fight for working class support, a key swing electorate.
Le Pen on Sunday contrasted his own French roots with those of Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian nobleman and grandson of a Greek who fought for France in World War One. Sarkozy said the outburst jarred with traditional French values of tolerance.
France's UMP political party presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy delivers a speech at a campaign rally in Toulouse, April 12, 2007. French centrist Francois Bayrou on Friday accused his rightist presidential rival Sarkozy of sending a chilling message to EU partner Germany with recent remarks on the Holocaust. (Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)
UMP BumP
America's Cup challenger Areva Challenge of France sails during the opening Boat Parade for the 32nd America?s Cup two days before the Valencia Louis Vuitton Cup competition in Valencia April 14, 2007. REUTERS/Victor Fraile (SPAIN).
Playing politics; That’s below the belt.
Go Sarko! Go get em!
The left’s playing the race card, eh? Is that a sign of desperation, or just standard practice like with Dimocrats here?
May I just say that I prefer our 2 party system to this. Sure, it has its ups and down, but these alliances and what not just get downright annoying.
I’m not impressed by Sarko. What makes you all think he’s going to change a thing? There are serious institutional and structural impediments to Sarko doing a damn thing in France.
Militias of non-Muslims groups grow in strength and start to take infrequent part in the fighting. A growing physical separation between different religious groups in the society. The level of emigration starts to become a national problem. Passive governments and passive political parties are replaced by hard-line nationalistic parties.
More here...
http://www.islam-watch.org/NoSharia/PreventEuropeIslamization1.htm
Many, many thanks to NoSharia
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