Royal-Sarkozy snubbed by Bayrou

26/04/2007| IslamWeb

Defeated centrist candidate Francois Bayrou refused to endorse either of France's presidential finalists yesterday, leaving Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal to fight it out for the crucial votes of his seven million supporters.Instead he launched a scathing attack on both candidates, savaging Royal's socialist economic programme, but reserving his strongest language for the right-winger Sarkozy, who he described as a danger to democracy.

"With his close links to the business world and media powers, his taste for intimidation and threat, Nicolas Sarkozy will concentrate powers as never before," said Bayrou, 55, drawing a parallel between Sarkozy and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"By his character and the themes he has chosen to stir up, he risks aggravating our social divide through policies that benefit the richest," he told a Press conference.

While crediting Royal with having "better intentions" in terms of democracy and being "more attentive" on social issues, Bayrou slated the specifics of her campaign platform. "Her programme is full of state intervention, perpetuating the illusion that it is up to the state to do everything, that it can do everything.

Bayrou was the surprise "third winner" of Sunday's multi-candidate stage of the election, bagging 18.7 per cent of the vote.

With presidential victory hinging on the Bayrou electorate, Sarkozy and Royal have both been sending out feelers to his centrist camp.

Bayrou, who currently heads the small Union for French Democracy (UDF), ruled out an alliance with either and said he was setting up a new centrist party, Democrat Party, to contest legislative elections on June 10 and 17.

Meanwhile, some see a neo-conservative agenda behind Sarkozy's promise of a "new French dream" to convince voters to back his reforms.

Fraternity

He has made the election as much about values as policy, urging voters at his first rally following Sunday's first round ballot success to embrace his "new French dream" of fraternity in which no one is left behind.

But Socialists say Sarkozy is an "American neo-conservative with a French passport", a free-marketeer who they say plans to dismantle France's prized social security system and make it easier for bosses to sack staff by weakening the labour code.

PHOTO CAPTION

Francois Bayrou, France's UDF political party leader, speaks at a news conference in Paris, April 25, 2007. (Reuters)