FRANCE: Campaigning intensifies during tight race for second round French presidential elections

Record ID: 347968

  • Title: FRANCE: Campaigning intensifies during tight race for second round French presidential elections
  • Date: 25th April 2007
  • Summary: (BN02) MONTPELIER, FRANCE (APRIL 24, 2007) (REUTERS) SUPPORTERS APPLAUDING AND WAITING FOR SEGOLENE ROYAL CLOSE UP ON A MAN WEARING A HAT WITH SEGOLENE WRITTEN ON IT ENTRANCE OF SEGOLENE ROYAL SEGOLENE ROYAL ON THE STAGE SUPPORTERS APPLAUDING
  • Embargoed: 10th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVACJZD7Q8UL5P1CYCP2G62JS1IK
  • Story Text: "Uniting the people of France" was the theme at a rally in northwestern France on Tuesday (April 24) as French presidential front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy continued battling for centrist votes to keep a lead ahead of Socialist contender Segolene Royal.
    Both candidates who will face a run-off on May 6 wasted no time in hitting the campaign trail to try and battle out who recovers a majority of centrist votes which will be key in the presidential vote outcome.
    "I wanted to give back to France its honour into French politics because you can't integrate anyone when you don't know who you are anymore. You can't make other people love what you have not learned to love yourself. I want everyone's identity to be respected. I want that no one forgets his roots, his history, his culture because I think differences makes us richer," he added.
    Sarkozy has been trying to convince voters that his inclusive vision of France was open to all and that now is the time for voters to find a common ground and unite.
    Sarkozy has been leading in the polls ahead of the May 6 run-off against Royal, but the distance between the two has narrowed, according to latest polls.
    Royal also rallied cheering crowds in southern France on Tuesday (April 24) in a bid to catch up with rival rightist candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.
    She offered French centrists talks on a political pact and possible cabinet posts, in a bid to win over moderate voters who hold the key to a May 6 presidential run-off.
    She suggested talks on five topics in her presidential pact including relaunching Europe, an impartial state and rejecting tensions in France's cities and tinderbox suburbs.
    That was a clear jibe at Sarkozy, a former interior minister whose incendiary language is blamed by many for France's worst riots in 40 years which swept rundown urban areas in 2005.
    "I call tonight in Montpelier a majority of citizens to refuse a fragmented country into rich ghettos and poor ghettos. I know that a majority of the French, and I speak to them, don't want a part of the country to be constantly one against the other. I know too that the French refuse social contempt and the brutality that accompanies it. France doesn't want political, economic and media power confiscated by the same hands."
    A TNS Sofres poll showed the distance has narrowed between the two candidates putting support for Sarkozy at 51 percent while Royal was on 49 percent. The survey of 1,000 people was carried out on April 23-24 and some 20 percent of respondents did not say who they planned to vote for.
    Many of the undecided voters leaned to the centre and some poll breakdown showed that 46 percent of those who voted for Francois Bayrou, the centrist who came third in Sunday's first round vote, would plump for Royal second time round, with just 25 percent backing Sarkozy.
    The former interior minister would, however, fare better with the far right, 62 percent of Jean-Marie Le Pen's voters switching to Sarkozy, with just 16 percent choosing Royal.
    The survey also showed that 43 percent of those planning to vote for Royal believed in the candidate but 54 percent would do so in order to block her rival.
    The Socialists hope to draw many Bayrou supporters scared by the combative style of the hardliner into an "anyone but Sarkozy" alliance.
    Royal appealed to supporters to vote for France's first female president, an event she said would have global resonance.
    "Yes, if the French made the bold choice to support a woman for the Presidency of the Republic then, as it has been writen in all the international press, yes it would indeed be a planetary event and we will not regret it," she told a packed rally.
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