BOULOGNE-BILLANCOURT, France Two years after losing the lyse Palace to the Socialists, Nicolas Sarkozy is hoping to stage a historic comeback by swinging further to the political right.
In the United States, the tea party revolution may be cooling. But in Europe, Sarkozys shift is a sign of the times. He and other European conservatives have found themselves caught in a political no mans land, between their traditional opponents on the left and the rising fortunes of the far right.
Their apparent answer: If you cant beat the nationalists and populists, then start to sound more like them.
The animated president of France from 2007 to 2012, Sarkozy passed his first goalpost on Saturday winning a vote for the leadership of his center-right Union for a Popular Movement party, known as the UMP. It came after a campaign he waged through town hall meetings and appearances across France and in which the debonair 59-year-old has unveiled pledges seemingly aimed at currying favor with voters flirting with the far right.
Angry about immigration? Dont worry, he says, he may just pull France out of a treaty that allows passport- and visa-free travel between 26 nations in Europe. Dont like Frances new law legalizing gay marriage? Sarkozy is now vowing to repeal it. Not happy with the European Union? He now says he wants its powers cut in half.
Sarkozy has ostensibly been campaigning only for his partys leadership. But the race has been tinted with far more ambition. At a recent rally in this wealthy Paris suburb, ubiquitous campaign posters simply dubbed him My President. Many observers see signs of a grand plan to reclaim the presidency in 2017 by staging the biggest comeback in French politics since Charles de Gaulles return to power in the 1950s.
I am not here to be the chosen candidate of journalists, Sarkozy said. I am here to be carried by the French people.
By hardening his stances on immigration in particular, Sarkozy is following a trail being blazed by other European conservatives facing challenges from the far right, including British Prime Minister David Cameron. But in France, at least, there are early signs the strategy may not be working suggesting a complicated path ahead for European conservatives.
True, Sarkozy won on Saturday, taking 64.5 percent of the vote of party loyalists. But that is significantly lower than the 80 percent analysts said he needed to prove a resounding victory.
And his top rival for the partys ticket in 2017 the mayor of Bordeaux and former prime minister Alain Jupp did not run, making his route to victory less arduous.
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In France, former president Sarkozy wins party leadership vote with shift to the right