Sparks flew as Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy tonight launched into their
two-hour face-off on French television in front of an audience of around 20
million.
Facing each other six feet apart at a square white table the finalists for the
French presidency made their opening attacks with Royal notably more
agressive in her initial stance.
She immediately attacked Sarkozy for the record of the outgoing rightist
government, in which he served as both interior minister and finance
minister.
“You are in part responsible for the situation in which France finds itself
today,” Royal said in her opening remarks, accusing the government of
failing to tackle unemployment and overseeing an increase in street crime.
Sarkozy, criticised for his harsh style, was determined not rise to the bait,
addressed her as “madame" and, after she repeatedly interrupted
him, said, “Will you let me reply?”
Royal said: "In 2002, Mr Sarkozy, you talked about zero tolerance. But
today, you can see that the French are very worried about the rise in
violence and aggression in French society. The number of violent acts at
school has risen by 26 percent.”
"I want to be the president who creates a France where aggression and
violence is receding, a France that will win the battle against unemployment
and an expensive life, and that will allow to make inequalities decrease.”
Sarkozy responded :“Am I responsible for a part of the record of the
government? Yes, Madame Royal. You spoke of violence. I am responsble. I was
interior minister for four years.
"I found a catastrophic situation which, moreover, went a long way in
explaining Madame Royal, the defeat of your friends in the government to
which you belonged at the time.
“If in 2002 the French people voted for change, and didn’t even qualify the
prime minister that you supported for the second round, there must have been
a reason for that. The reason, everyone has understood, was that violence
and deliquency had exploded, and it was in those conditions that I was named
interior minister."
An immediate bone of contention was France’s 35-hour work week - a landmark
reform for Socialists but decried by business leaders as a crippling brake
on companies.
Sarkozy wants to get around the 35-hour week by making overtime tax-free, to
encourage people to work more. He described the measure, introduced by the
Socialists in the 1990s, as a “monumental error".
Again, Royal cut Sarkozy off during the discussion.
“Will you let me finish?” he asked.
“No,” said Royal.
“Ah,” said Sarkozy.
Sarkozy said: “At root, she is stuck in a Socialist logic of sharing work.
"There is work time which is to be shared out in a cake and she says
nobody will work more than 35 hours, that will force bosses to hire more
people.
“There isn’t a single country, Madame, not a single one, Socialist or not,
that has followed the logic of sharing work time, which is a monumental
error.
“The 35 hours have not created jobs and the 35 hours were responsible for
something even more serious which is wage restraint, which means our wages
are too low. That hurts French people’s purchasing power, and lower
purchasing power means less growth.
"We have to relaunch growth - the problem of France is that there is
roughly one percent growth less than in the major democracies and major
economies that are making progress in the world.
“Why? For one reason, Madame Royal, because we work less than the others. How
do we get one percentage point more in growth? By respecting work, giving
work its value, considering work, giving work it its worth."
Royal responded:“The very precise response on the 35 hour is that on this
subject, as on others, there will be negotiations between social partners,
sector by sector.
“Either they will agree and there will be the 35 hour (week), or they don’t
agree and there won’t be a generalisation of the 35 hour in the companies
concerned."
The clash between the pair was epitomised by their exchange over the issue of
taxation.
Royal said: “I want to raise small pensions straight away.”
Sarkozy replied: "How will you pay for it?”
Royal: “I will tell you. I will put extra funds in the pension funds reserve.”
Sarkozy: "Very good, where do you get the money from?"
Royal: “From a tax on stock exchange revenues."
Sarkozy: “Of how much?”
Royal: “The social partners [unions and business leaders] will discuss it. But
at least the principle is established.”
Sarkozy: “How much will you put in the fund?”
Royal: “I’m just setting out the principle. I have a plan.”
Sarkozy: “No, no, hang on, this is very interesting. This tax you are
creating, for us - when [Socialist prime minister] Lionel Jospin created
this [pension reserve] fund, it was to have 120 billion euros. There are 36
billion in it, each year the state puts in 6 billion. Your tax, roughly, how
much is it?"
Royal: “My tax will be at the level necessary for social justice.”
Sarkozy: “That’s a stunning piece of detail. Can’t you give us a figure?”
Royal: “No I can’t. Why can’t I give you a figure? Because the resumption of
growth will also create additional revenues."
Sarkozy: “So you are going to create a tax without telling the French people
how much it’s going to be, and how much you hope to gain from this tax?
That’s really going
to be a great help to the balance of our pension funds.”
The first French candidates’ debate since 1995 is the last chance for Ms Royal
to capture the centrist vote that she needs to break the momentum of the
reforming conservative who is running more than four points ahead of her in
polls.
She is aiming to needle the tightly-strung Mr Sarkozy into revealing the dark
and “brutal” side of his nature that she and the Left have turned into their
chief weapon.
Adapting his usual aggressive tactics for combat with a woman, Mr Sarkozy is
seeking to highlight Ms Royal’s shifting opinions and shaky grasp of matters
of state.
Ms Royal, 53, the Socialist challenger, and Mr Sarkozy, 52, the conservative
favourite, rehearsed with sparring partners of the opposite sex to devise
the killer lines that could swing the vote.
Screened by France’s two main television channels the show-down, moderated by
two of France’s most prominent journalists, was expected to be watched by
almost half of the country's 44.5 million voters.
Details of the debate had been worked out in minute detail after intensive
consultation with the campaign teams.
Each camera shot has been agreed on, as have rules such as a ban on showing
the other candidate’s face when one is speaking.
Both candidates will get the same air time as they work their way through a
range of subjects from the environment, family, and education to Europe and
international policy.
The last Royal-Sarkozy debate on television has been traced to 1993. Mr
Sarkozy was a junior minister after a general election in which Ms Royal
lost her junior ministerial post. She accused him of bullying and called him
a steamroller.
“Don’t speak to me like that!” she snapped. “All the viewers can see that what
you are saying is off the wall.”
With his promises of radical change, Mr Sarkozy maintains a four to six point
lead, but there is uncertainty because one in five voters are undecided. The
indecision reaches 40 per cent among the 18 per cent of voters who backed
François Bayrou in the first round.
Ms Royal has spent the past week courting these key voters by casting herself
as a safe choice for peaceful change and predicting upheaval if Mr Sarkozy
wins.
Ms Royal’s strategy springs from figures that show that the deciding factor in
the election will be the strength of feeling against Mr Sarkozy. A Sofres
poll yesterday found that 56 per cent of those who intend to vote for Ms
Royal will do so because they want to block Mr Sarkozy. Only 42 per cent
believed in the candidate.
President Chirac’s former Interior Minister has been campaigning for the past
week to soften the harsh image that has fuelled the “anyone but Sarkozy”
campaign.
“I want to protect France from the out-sourcing of jobs,” he told France
television yesterday. “I want to control immigration, I want to give them
the security to which they are entitled.”
Mr Sarkozy may have been helped with centrist voters when Jean-Marie Le Pen,
leader of the far-Right National Front, called on his supporters to abstain
from voting in Sunday’s election.
France has had no presidential debate since 1995 because President Chirac
refused to engage with Mr Le Pen after he broke through into the run-off in
2002.
Killer lines in three of the four previous debates were credited with helping
swing the vote in the final days of campaign. In 1974, in the first debate,
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Finance Minister from the centre-right, scored a
hit against François Mitterrand, the veteran Socialist opposition leader, by
saying: “You do not have a monopoly over the heart, Mr Mitterrand.”
