Alain Juppe emerges as the winner in first debate as France’s right-wingers vie for nomination
Sarkozy, who was France’s president from 2007 to 2012, was attacked by several of his former ministers and party allies
Former Prime Minister Alain Juppe was seen as the winner of the first debate on Thursday among candidates for the centre-right’s nomination in France’s 2017 presidential election, a poll published immediately afterward showed.
Juppe, already the front runner on a centrist platform of “happy identity” which he said in the televised debate meant giving voters hope, was seen as most convincing by 32 per cent of those who said they would vote in the end-November primaries. The poll was conducted as an online survey of 885 voters by polling firm Elabe commissioned by news network BFM TV.
I am convinced that with the right reforms, France will once again be the country where the living is good
Nicolas Sarkozy, a former president running on a law-and-order agenda meant, he said, “to ensure France once more becomes the great nation it is,” convinced 27 per cent of voters in the two-hour debate.
The debate showed great similarities among the seven candidates on economic proposals meant to reduce public spending and loosen or eliminate France’s iconic 35-hour work week.
There were more differences on issues of security and immigration, with contenders quarrelling over whether those on intelligence services’ watch lists should be systematically detained.
Sarkozy, who was France’s president from 2007 to 2012 before losing to current president, Socialist Francois Hollande, was attacked by several of his former ministers and party allies. They questioned why he would be any different than in his first term and noted he faces multiple judicial investigations into alleged corruption, fraud and campaign funding irregularities.
“Ten years ago, in 2007, I believed in Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to break with the past, but it never happened,” former conservative party leader Jean-Francois Cope said. “If I had been put under formal investigation, I wouldn’t have run [in this election],” he said.