Nicholas Sarkozy has just begun an intense promotional campaign for the fourth volume of his memoirs, entitled Le temps des combats (Time of fighting), which will go on sale on August 22. The first stage has been an interview of endless dimensions in le figaroin which he addresses various issues from his years (2007-2012) at the Élysée, as well as the most pressing national –France– and international news.
Asked about those center-right personalities who are tempted by an alliance, explicit or implicit, with the National Group of Marine Le Pen, he answers the following: «It would be a mistake. One only has to see what has just happened in Spain. The ambiguity of the Spanish right in this matter (understand the tug of war that surrounded the pacts of the Popular Party with Vox) it sank it. Of course, I don’t believe in anathemas or moral lessons. The problem is not the supposed belonging of Marine Le Pen to the “extreme right”. “That’s too easy a caricature,” she adds.
What is, then, the problem? «That there are too many things that separate us from her. His idea of Europe, his idea of culture, his idea of the history of France, his economic program, which is that of the left of the seventies. The increase in the minimum wage and the return to retirement at age 60 are demagogic promises. In addition, she has neither the environment nor the experience to assume such a role ». At this point the indirect mentions of Sarkozy to Vox and the PP as well as the most direct to the parties of his country.
The former French president maintains his usual position, contrary to any alliance with the formation headed by Le Pen. However, not only is he not disgusted by basic elements of Lepenist rhetoric, but he vindicates them. For example, with the famous speech he gave in Grenoble in 2010, in which he linked the rise in crime with immigration. In this regard, Sarkozy’s approach remains the same: he persists in believing that can weaken the “hard” right recovering part of its theme, although without establishing alliances with it or its representatives.
It may seem reasonable, but it has been rejected by the voters: in 2012, the year of his defeat to François Hollande, neither the implacable words spoken in Grenoble, nor the fact of calling “scum” (racaille) to part of the suburbanites was enough to reverse the electoral trend. The reason was the lack of adequacy between his words and his final balance on immigration and crime, two of the essential points that contributed to his spectacular victory in 2007.
There are also other parts of his statements to le figaro surprising: when one of the journalists in charge of conducting the interview for the glowing praise with which he showers the Brazilian president Lula da Silva, whose ideas are at a considerable distance from his own, replies that “people are disoriented by the violence and the complexity of the problems they have to face”, so “it is normal. that they resort to experienced men and women.” He also includes in that category Benjamin Netanyahu, Viktor Orbán and others who have been elected or re-elected. Yes to Orban and no to Le Pen?
