Mr Sarkozy responded to his rival's suggestion that voting for him constituted a "risk", declaring: "I don't believe we have ever heard such violent and menacing suggestions in the history of the Fifth Republic.No surprise though, Royal is a Nazi, as are all socialists.
"To explain that if you don't vote for a candidate there will be violence is quite simply to refuse the democratic and republican expression of opinion. We have never seen this before, never. This warlike language is a negation of basic rules of democracy."
He described her remarks as "verbal violence" and said he could not believe his victory would spark unrest.Y'gotta admit, he's got a way with words. This can be seen both as a negation of what Royal said -- and that what she said is or should be insulting to the Moslem hoodlums -- and as a tongue-in-cheek commentary about the hoodlums themselves. Heads he wins, tails she loses.
"What, you mean to say that certain people will contest the rules of the Republic and the law of the majority? I cannot imagine it," he said.
Should have pinged ya here, and see message 6.
Sarkozy set to unleash new French revolution
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The campaign has been extraordinarily bitter, reflecting a polarised and divided people who know they are making a historic choice between very different individuals and very different programmes. 'If Sarkozy has the will and the ability to turn his announced policies into reality, he will turn France upside down,' said Ivan Rioufol, a leader writer at the right-wing Le Figaro newspaper. Royal, 53, also provokes fierce emotions, attacked by the right as an incompetent spendthrift representative of an unreformed left responsible for decades of cultural, social and economic decline. But the career politician, daughter of an army officer and educated at elite universities, remains far less controversial than her rival, the son of an immigrant seen as an outsider even by the establishment right.
For those who are voting against him, Sarkozy, whose electoral strategy has been to hunt votes amid the third of French voters who profess a 'sympathy' with the ideas of the extreme right, is 'the abomination of abominations'. 'This is a man who shook the hand of George Bush, who will destroy the French social model, who will institute a police state,' said Geraldine Chene, a Lyon-based Socialist activist. 'We hate him and all he stands for.'
Sarkozy's uncompromising statements on immigration are behind much of the fierce emotion he excites. Lilian Thuram, the French football star, has vociferously attacked Sarkozy's 'racist' rhetoric. He told The Observer yesterday he hoped that 'if Sarkozy is President he has the wisdom to find the words to unite the French'. Key public figures, such as the former tennis player and singer Yannick Noah, have pledged to leave the country in the event of his victory.
'You would think we were on the brink of civil war,' said Jacques Marseille, an author and historian.
For Mohammed Chirani, 29, who is walking across France to call for unity among his fellow citizens, 'the election has crystallised all the faultlines that divide the nation. I've never seen so much fear and hate. I'm not optimistic for the country, whoever wins.'
And though Royal's claims last week that a Sarkozy victory would lead to 'violence' were dismissed as scaremongering by her opponent's media team, significant social strife is likely if he wins. Many local mayors in areas where tensions are already high - Sarkozy is hated in many of the poorest housing estates in France for having described delinquents as 'scum' - are planning heavy police deployments tonight.