GOOGLINGNEWS (BUSINESS), The French presidential election race has heated up, with Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist favourite François Hollande accusing each other of lies and manipulation.
At a campaign meeting in Annecy on Thursday night, Sarkozy accused Hollande of "lying morning and night", while Hollande hit back on primetime TV news that he wouldn't rise to false charges, caricature and manipulation.
Sarkozy, who is running for a second term but is behind in the polls, said at his first rally in Annecy: "When you say to the English press you're [economically] liberal and when you've told France that your enemy is finance, you're lying, you're lying morning and night."
He was alluding to Hollande's lunchtime meeting with the British and US news media on Monday, as reported by the Guardian.
At the lunch, Hollande, who said last month his main adversary "was the world of finance", insisted on the need for financial regulation and control of the markets but sought to brush aside fears on the political right in London that he was a risk to the economy.
He argued that his drive to control the markets was in line with "public opinion" and that the French left had managed the economy successfully before. Hollande praised Tony Blair for education and health reforms but criticised him on economics, saying the former prime minister had "succumbed to the dominant idea that the markets could regulate themselves and the notion that the markets and [economic] liberalism in themselves could be a factor for growth ... We saw the consequences."
Asked on the French TV news about Sarkozy's charge, Hollande said: "I'm not going to get stuck in brawls, quips and invective." He added that he did not want to focus on "attacks that have no sense, when in addition, there is falsification, caricature, manipulation".
He said: "In that interview, I was told, 'So if you come to power it will be revolution in France.' Let's not exaggerate, we are efficient managers, we have shown that in the past, we're responsible, and at the same time, we won't give in, because I don't want my country to submit to finance gone mad." He said he had given no guarantees to the world of free-market capitalism.
The presidential election will take place in April and May. The latest poll for BVA put Hollande on 31% in the first round of the poll with Sarkozy on 26%. In the 6 May run-off, the vote would be 56% to 44%, said BVA.
Source : http://www.guardian.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment