I will protect France, Sarkozy tells voters

Presenting his electoral programme to supporters in Paris today, Mr Sarkozy restated several pledges made eaerlier in the presidential campaign, including a promise to cut immigration numbers.

The presentation was accompanied by the release of a letter to voters detailing 32 proposals. Introducing the letter, Mr Sarkozy said: “In the wake of the tragedies at Montauban and Toulouse, I want to ask French people: what sort of civilisation is it that we want to live in?”

The 32 points in the French president’s manifesto include a freeze on France’s contribution to the EU, a reduction in the number of MPs, greater use of referendums, and training for all unemployed.

Overtaking Hollande

A wave of rioting broke out in cities across France in May 2007 in the aftermath of Nicolas Sarkozy’s win in the presidential elections. Toulouse featured prominently in the protests.

In a piece of political symmetry, the end of President Sarkozy’s first term saw the political focus turn again to the southern city – France’s fourth largest – when gunman Mohamed Merah shot dead a teacher and three children at a Jewish school.

Francois Hollande has had a problem in recent weeks because another candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, is taking his support. Agnes Poirier, commentator

Until then, Mr Sarkozy had been performing badly in presidential polls. His main rival, the socialist Francois Hollande, consistently ranked ahead of him since the latter launched his manifesto at the end of January.

But Sarkozy’s response the carnage in Toulouse – a pledge to punish those viewing Islamist websites and to bar radical preachers from entering the country – has coincided with him overtaking Hollande in the polls.

President Sarkozy could now secure the most votes in the first round of the French election on 22 April. But French political commentator Agnes Poirier, UK editor of Marianne magazine, says he has only enjoyed a small boost in the wake of Toulouse

“His current standing is as much to do with a decline in support for Francois Hollande,” she told Channel 4 News. “Hollande has had a problem in recent weeks because another candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is to the left of Hollande, is taking his support.”

Read more: ‘The French just want to see the back of Sarkozy’

‘Market’s heartless cruelty’

Melenchon’s proposal to set a maximum wage of 360,000 euros is among the most radical policies in an election that has seen no shortage of headline-grabbing ideas. Francois Hollande’s manifesto, for example, includes a popular plan to raise income tax to 75 per cent for those earning more than 1m euros a year.

Francois Hollande’s manifesto includes a popular plan to raise income tax to 75 per cent for those earning more than 1m euros.

But commentators on both sides of the Channel have noted that the political debate since the start of the year has failed seriously to address France’s economic problems. A series of articles on the country’s budgetary challenges, in a recent edition of The Economist, stirred interest across the French TV networks.

The Economist’s lead article charges the French political class with ignoring economic problems, in the process making it far harder to tackle them in the future. Unemployment is higher than at any time since the 1990s, public spending – at 56 per cent – is higher than in any other eurozone country as a percentage of GDP, and public debt is at 90 per cent of GDP.

Its conclusion – that “French voters are notorious for their belief in the state’s benevolence and the market’s heartless cruelty” – helps explain why Francois Hollande’s income tax proposals have been so popular. “61 per cent of French people approve of this latest coup,” says Agnes Poirier. “Personalities who try to lead France for fiscal reasons will be looked down on.”

Halal row

That is why critics maintain that Nicolas Sarkozy’s policy proposals do little directly to address the need to rebalance the French economy.

He says he wants to boost competitiveness and growth, to reform the country’s generous welfare system, and to tackle chronic youth unemployment. And he has stressed the need to curb the excesses of the financial industry.

Whatever the outcome of the 22 April vote, Francois Hollande is favourite to win the decisive run-off vote on 6 May.

But many of the president’s most eye-catching ideas in the run-up to today’s announcements have been superficial and reactive, appearing sometimes to play on barely residual resentment of France’s large Muslim population. When far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, in an anti-Islamic slight, suggested many consumers were inadvertently eating halal meat, Sarkozy conceded that the issue was indeed one “that most preoccupies the French”.

He has also threatened to suspend France’s membership of Europe’s visa-free Schengen zone – under which residents can travel freely from one country to another – unless there is progress on EU external border controls.

Whatever the outcome of the 22 April vote, Francois Hollande is favourite to win the decisive run-off vote on 6 May.

It could mean Nicolas Sarkozy’s inward-looking vision for the future of France – his manifesto makes little reference to foreign policy – is replaced by an equally introverted but left-of-centre approach, where fuel prices are frozen, government ministers’ salaries are slashed, and the right of many to retire at 60 is restored.

For France, as for so many other nations trying to reconcile the habits of affluence with the need for future austerity, a long and possibly bitter ideological battle lies ahead.