On a stage facing a sea of tricolour flags stood a small figure in a pinstriped suit hailed as the greatest orator in France. Slicing the air with both hands and jabbing his finger, he waved his arms like an orchestra conductor, whipping the crowd into a frenzy as he promised a France that would no longer hate itself, that would no longer let unchecked immigrants invade its borders and burn its suburbs.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the right-wing frontrunner in France’s first-round presidential vote, has spent weeks stressing that he has mellowed. But at his final campaign rally in front of 20 000 people in Marseille, the former interior minister who once suggested wayward suburban youths were scum, sent a clear message: ”I’m still myself.”
Reclaiming the passion he had recently toned down, he dripped with sweat as he promised to be France’s ”protector” and restore faith in a country crippled by unemployment, economic stagnation and self-doubt.
”I hate this fashion for repentance that says France hates itself and its history,” he roared.
He said colonisation might have been an ”unfair system” but would not apologise for it and talked of the debt owed to those ”decent and hardworking French families” forced out of Africa.
Boasting no fear of the ”politically correct” lobby, he proudly repeated his codewords for a new moral and patriotic France. ”Authority! Authority! Authority!” he shouted to wild cheers. He joked about critics’ fears of a ”police state”, saying he would not back down on firm policing. The crowd went wild.
If Sarkozy makes it through the first round on Sunday night, the final two weeks of the French presidential election campaign will be a referendum on his personality.
For the awe-struck crowd at Marseille and millions across France, he is the only figure strong enough to restore French pride and kick-start the flagging economy by embracing liberalism with a more flexible labour market and lower tax.
He promises to lock up young offenders, control immigration, rid the streets of crime and stop factories being moved from France to the lower-cost developing world. To his critics on the left, he is a divisive demagogue, a racist authoritarian, highly strung and driven by personal ambition.
Regardless of their political viewpoint, the majority of French people think he will win the second-round run-off on May 6 to become president of France.
Sarkozy’s campaigning style will dominate any run-off and he is certain to turn to his trusted celebrity magazines. But on Friday he was forced to deny rumours about the absence of his second wife, Cecilia. She was present at the start of campaigning in January, but has not been with him in public for weeks and was not at the Marseille rally.
The couple had a public break-up more than a year ago, when she sought the company of an advertising executive and he fell into the arms of a journalist, but the start of Sarkozy’s presidential race marked a very public reconciliation. This week the extreme-right contender, Jean-Marie Le Pen, commented on her absence. ”My family has suffered a lot from certain provocations. I have chosen to protect them,” Mr Sarkozy told the French press.
Instead Sarkozy, who likes to be photographed on his morning runs or cycling with the heroes of the Tour de France, surrounded himself in Marseille with sports stars such as David Ginola. The former French national footballer Basile Boli took to the stage to praise Sarkozy, countering another black French footballer, Lilian Thuram, who has accused him of racism. The presidential hopeful devoted much of his speech to Martin Luther King.
Sarkozy’s promise to save France from self-hatred played well with a local crowd, who are worried about immigrants in the south of France and how ”crazy laws in Brussels” are trying to stop them making cheese. The best-selling item at the stall selling giant flags and Sarkozy handbags was the ”stylo Marseillaise”, a pen that plays the national anthem.
Sarkozy’s supporters had no illusions about life in France under his presidency. ”It will be difficult,” said Gérard Pochy, a former accountant from Avignon. ”Protesters will take to the streets, there will be strikes against reform, but Sarkozy has the conviction to change things and stick to his guns. Yes, the housing estates will riot if he gets in, but they would riot anyway, they’re so marginalised.”
Jérôme Toulemonde (21), from a village in the Vaucluse, was one of a new breed of political animal known as the Sarkoboys. With a humble background and no family connections, he was inspired to join the party by Sarkozy’s meteoric rise from a lowly start handing out flyers for Jacques Chirac.
”We don’t want the France of elites any more. He’s not a snob like Chirac. He’s willing to talk about immigration and national identity when people feel too many people are coming in,” he said.
Unusual for a would-be French president, Sarkozy has immigrant roots (he is the son of a minor Hungarian aristocrat), does not drink, does not have elite post-graduate qualifications and is proudly pro-American.
In Toulouse, the socialist challenger, Ségolène Royal, led her final rally promising an alternative to the right’s ”brutality”.
The news weekly Marianne last week sold record-breaking copies of an issue promising the truth about Sarkozy’s love of control. The satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo ran a front-cover picture of him and the caption: ”Vote Fear”.
Isabel Dufossé, a councillor from La Vallette, wearing an ”I vote Sarkozy T-shirt”, has worked with Sarkozy for two years. She said his empathy would convince the country. ”He so understands the French mood, that when I start to say something to him, he finishes my phrases before I do,” she said. — Guardian Unlimited Â