Sarkozy stresses unity as he ends campaign

[NewsCaster]

NICE, France - Nicolas Sarkozy made the final appearance of his campaign in the southern seaside town of Nice, seeking to emphasis unity within the party and his leadership on economic matters.

The president spoke without notes to around 10,000 supporters, paying little heed to predictions from opinion polls that suggest he is likely to lose May’s run-off vote for the presidency.

Predictions for the first round of voting on Sunday put him head to head with the other leading candidate, the Socialist Party’s Francois Hollande.

His choice to hold his final rally in the Cote d’Azur, the region of France where the far-right National Front traditionally achieves its highest scores, marked the culmination of a campaign that has focused on winning over the far right electorate.

Obligingly, the crowd reserved its largest booing of the night for the FN candidate, Marine Le Pen.

He warned those tempted by Le Pen that voting for the far-right candidate would result in “suffering, desperation and misery” for the French people.

Careful to position himself as being firm on immigration yet not as extreme as Le Pen, he also condemned the Socialists for not taking a harder position, saying that France did not have the resources to welcome so many new migrants.

The left was guilty of “false generosity [and] false humanism”, he said.

United front

Keen to stress a united front amongst the UMP ranks, Sarkozy made special mention of two guests whose presence, he said, symbolised the coming together of the political family.

Bernadette Chirac, the wife of former President Jacques Chirac, gave an opening speech, her presence signifying a seal of approval from at least some of the party’s Gaullist wing.

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[/table] "Sarkozy needs us," she told the crowd.

French media, from the leftwing Liberation to the rightwing Figaro, have widely reported that her husband will be voting for Hollande, causing considerable embarrassment for Sarkozy.

Yet on Friday Sarkozy dismissed these reports as “lies”, telling Bernadette Chirac that “with your presence here, all the family is together".

Rama Yade, a former member of Sarkozy’s government and a darling of the French public, also had a front row seat, indicating an apparent end to the bad blood between herself and Sarkozy’s inner circle.

Sarkozy’s former state secretary of human rights had publically cut ties with the president and the UMP in June 2011, having come under frequent attack from top members of the party for her outspokenness.

In his speech, the UMP candidate reminded his audience of how the left had condemned those who, like Yade, had crossed the political lines to join his first and second governments.

“I saw how those who joined us were treated, the names they were called,” he said, making  no mention of the fact that almost all the candidates from outside the party ranks had subsequently been cast out of his government.

Al Jazeera