HE MAY be ahead in the polls but Nicolas Sarkozy is facing awkward questions
about an allegedly volatile temperament after a former colleague accused the
frontrunner in the French presidential election of threatening to beat him
up.
Azouz Begag, a writer of Algerian origin who resigned last week as equal
opportunities minister, claimed that Sarkozy, the former interior minister,
told him after a fierce argument on the telephone: “I’m going to smash your
face in.”
His forthcoming memoir, an extract of which appeared yesterday, was a blow to
Sarkozy’s already heavily handicapped campaign to woo immigrant voters.
Begag said in the book that Sarkozy and other ministers had treated him as
the “token wog” brought into government for the sake of appearances.
This followed claims by Ségolene Royal, the Socialist candidate, that an
explosive temperament should disqualify Sarkozy, a reform-minded
conservative, from holding high office.
Sarkozy, 52, was leading 53-year-old Royal in the race to replace President
Jacques Chirac but strong showings by François Bayrou, the centrist
candidate, and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the far right National Front have made
the race unpredictable. The top two candidates in a first round of voting on
April 22 will face off in a final round on May 6.
Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant, has been dogged by questions about
his temperament since 2005, when he said after being pelted with bottles and
rocks that he wanted to flush “yobs” and “rabble” out of the immigrant
suburbs. This was said to have been a factor in rioting that followed across
France.
Last week, after clashes between youths and police in a Paris railway station,
Sarkozy accused Royal of siding with rioters and she responded with
suggestions that her combative rival was mentally unstable.
“If Sarkozy were elected,” she said, “he would start insulting other heads of
state and government who don’t think like he does.”
Royal, herself a target over a series of foreign policy gaffes, went on: “The
violence of his words bodes ill,” adding that “to hold the highest office of
state, you have to know how to control yourself”. She also accused Sarkozy
of being a “liar”, asking: “Is he fit for the presidency?”
Sarkozy, who has been known to savage aides from time to time for being
“useless” and “incompetent”, sought to play down the temper issue and, in a
book published last Monday, said he was “trying to improve with age”. He
added: “Experience has taught me not to overreact.”
On Thursday he defended his famous diatribe against immigrant troublemakers,
in which he had vowed to clean them out of one Paris suburb with a
high-powered hose that is sold under the brand name of Kärcher and is used
to wash graffiti off walls.
“I have been reproached,” he said in a speech in Lyons, where a group of
protesters shouted “Kärcher” at him, “for using the word ‘rabble’ to refer
to thugs who are poisoning people’s lives. But where are we going if we
cannot even call a thug a thug?”
He went on: “What sort of example are we offering to youth if it is always
society that is to blame and never the criminals?”
Bad tempers are nothing new in French politics. Chirac once stormed out of a
meeting in Brussels just because it was conducted in English and snapped at
Tony Blair in an argument over European Union policy, saying: “I’ve never
been spoken to like this before.”
That sounded polite compared with what Chirac was said to have told Sarkozy
after hearing that his former protégé turned rival planned taking over the
presidency of the ruling UMP party in 2004. “I’ll kill you,” he bellowed
into the telephone, according to an aide to Sarkozy.
However, few politicians besides Sarkozy, a diminutive figure who has dreamt
of being president since his childhood, have so consistently given the
impression of being on the verge of exploding.
Le Monde last week saw signs in him of “irrepressible impatience” and
“permanent dissatisfaction” that conspired against victory. “What anguish
prevents him from containing the excesses of a temperament reminiscent of a
capricious school child?” the newspaper asked.
Begag’s book seemed to seal Sarkozy’s electoral fate in the suburbs where even
Le Pen, the antiimmigrant candidate and runner-up in the election of 2002,
was making inroads among voters. At least the rumbustious rightist can visit
the troubled districts of Paris without risk, as he did on Friday. Sarkozy,
by contrast, has yet to fulfil a pledge to return to Argenteuil, where he
made his “Kärcher” comment, for fear of provoking a riot.
“Many, many people in the suburbs will vote for Le Pen, not for his ideas but
as a protest against the system,” said Rost, a Paris rapper of Togolese
origin who has become a spokesman for immigrant youths in France.
Rost, 30, who grew up with eight brothers and sisters in a single room in
Paris, spent last year travelling the country to persuade young men and
women to register to vote. “I told them that this was the only way of
getting politicians to pay attention to unemployment and marginalisation,”
he said.
Rost certainly does not lack credibility among his audience. “I dream of being
the killer of the cop who kills our brothers,” go the lyrics to one of his
songs.
Voter registration has increased dramatically in the suburban hotspots. The
intensity of the “anyone but Sarkozy” campaign is noticeable also in the
number of defaced campaign posters.
One of the posters, which features the slogan “together, everything becomes
possible”, has invited particular mockery and people have scribbled
underneath, “police brutality, mass arrests, deportations”.
Sarkozy, who wants to streamline government and make France more competitive,
has desperately sought to soften his image to counter the obvious advantage
that Royal has among women. His latest book, entitled Together, tried to
emphasise how much he had changed.
“I have gained in serenity,” he wrote. “The exercise of power has changed me.
It has opened me to a part of humanity I did not know, where I discovered
true suffering.”
He also let slip last week that he would impose equality of the sexes in his
cabinet, if elected, which would mean the appointment of seven or eight
women out of 15 ministers. Royal, the daughter of a strict army colonel, has
made no such promises.
As for Begag, he is no doubt happy to be free of the government. He said Brice
Hortefeux, another minister turned Sarkozy campaign adviser, once insulted
him during a government meeting, saying: “Get out of here. There isn’t a
place for you.”
