Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy meets with other European conservative party leaders in Brussels, February 18 (EPP)
The political comeback of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy came to an abrupt halt on Sunday night, when he placed a disappointing third in the contest for his party’s 2017 presidential nomination.
Sarkozy had been expected to quality for a runoff next week together with Alain Juppé, a former prime minister.
But Sarkozy’s own former premier, François Fillon, surged into first place, winning 44 percent support with 3.2 million of the votes counted.
Juppé placed second with 28 percent support, followed by Sarkozy at 21 percent. (more…)
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy meets with other European conservative leaders in Brussels, June 28 (EPP)
A major foreign-policy issue that divides the top three contenders for the French right’s presidential nomination is Russia.
BuzzFeed reports how Nicolas Sarkozy has transformed himself from a Vladimir Putin critic into a Vladimir Putin apologist since he lost the presidency in 2012.
The former president has criticized President François Hollande’s handling of relations with Russia. He argues the EU should suspend sanctions against Russia. And most controversially, the former president has endorsed a referendum annexing Crimea to Russia, a view that puts him at odds with most UN states.
François Fillon, Sarkozy’s former prime minister, has struck a conciliatory tone as well.
He told the magazine Valeurs actuelles this week it was “fortunate” Russia had intervened in the Syrian conflict, otherwise the self-proclaimed Islamic State might have reached Damascus by now.
In reality, Russia’s objective in Syria is to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. It has not prioritized fighting the Islamic State, which mostly does battle with Western-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. (more…)
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy meets with other European conservative leaders in Brussels, June 28 (EPP)
Former prime ministers François Fillon and Alain Juppé got the most support in the first round of the French center-right’s presidential primary on Sunday.
Of the two, Juppé is the more mainstream and pro-European candidate.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the former president, placed third and was eliminated from the contest.
The winner will be decided in a second voting round next week. (more…)
French foreign minister Alain Juppé gives a speech at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, February 27, 2012 (UN/Jean-Marc Ferré)
Polls suggest former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing strategy to win his party’s presidential nomination is not paying off.
After the seven Republican candidates vying to replace François Hollande, the Socialist Party incumbent, next year participated in the first televised debate of the primary last week, Alain Juppé, a former prime minister, remained in the lead with almost 40 percent support.
George W. Bush and his acolytes are these days fond of claiming that history will eventually judge the administration of the former American president kindly. This is supposedly especially true of their foreign policy legacy: the “freedom agenda.” They went as far as to claim the “Arab Spring” as vindication.
Bush and the neoconservatives are unlikely to ever find their swan song adequately praised in history manuals but by no means is foreign policy out of fashion as far as swan songs go.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency for one was controversial enough but unlike Bush’s, his track record may yet be vindicated. (more…)
One of the things that was taken out of the 2007 French presidential election was the collapse of the far right (the Front national or FN), the same far right which five years earlier had shocked the world and France by placing second in the presidential race with 16.9 percent of the vote. Its poor 10.4 percent showing in 2007 was followed by a drubbing in subsequent legislative elections and an equally weak showing in the 2009 European elections.
It has rightfully been said that Nicolas Sarkozy took a lot of the far-right vote in 2007 with his tough law and order platform and populist rhetoric. It helped him with working-class voters, many of whom had supported the FN in 2002 despite their left-wing roots.
Following the party’s collapse, which put it on the verge of bankruptcy and forced it to sell off its headquarters in an affluent Parisian suburb, the far right was buried. Sarkozy and the traditional right had permanently integrated most of the FN’s electorate, and it would collapse following the inevitable retirement of its historical lider maximo, Jean-Marie Le Pen.
It turns out that the far right was buried far too early and the party that passed for dead or at least moribund four years ago is roaring back with a vengeance. (more…)
