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LONDON: Influential weekly The Economist came out in
support of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidency
Thursday, while saying its choice was “faute de mieux”—for
want of anyone better.
In a leading article 10 days
before the April 22 first round of voting, it said Sarkozy
represented “France’s Chance” for reform—and likened him to
a Napoleon arriving on horseback on its front cover.
Socialist Segolene Royal’s
attractions include that she is the first serious female contender,
and her “willingness to break with Socialist taboos” by, for
example, praising Britain’s Tony Blair and criticizing France’s
35-hour week.
“Unfortunately her policies are
woolly even by modern standards. And in economics, she stands
squarely behind all the old left-wing shibboleths: state
intervention, rigid labor protection and high taxes,” it said.
Centrist Francois Bayrou was
“more promising,” the Economist said, noting his pledge to curb
public debt. “But he has failed to promote a free-market
agenda—he is distressingly fond of farm subsidies and state
intervention.
“Which leaves Mr. Sarkozy as
the best of the bunch. Unlike the others, and despite his long
service as a minister under Mr. Chirac, he makes no bones of
admitting that France needs radical change,” it said.
But there are two doubts about
Sarkozy. “As he showed in his brief stint as finance minister, he
has most of the traditional French politician’s meddlesome
economic instincts,” such as protecting national champions.
It also noted “a second
unattractive streak: a form of nativism, reflected in his harsh
comments about immigrants and national identity.
“On the evidence of his career
and his campaign, Mr. Sarkozy is less a principled liberal than a
brutal pragmatist,” it said.
“Yet he is the only candidate
brave enough to advocate the rupture with its past that France needs
after so many gloomy years.
“It has been said that France
advances by revolution from time to time but seldom, if ever,
manages to reform. Mr. Sarkozy offers at least a chance of proving
this aphorism wrong.”
-- AFP
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