The announcement of the candidacy of Jacques Chirac’s former Prime Minister surprised the entire political community, and it has not been welcomed by everyone. From the regrets at the UMP to the encouragements expressed by his supporters, here are some of the reactions.
Photo: Martin Bureau, AFP
Article source: “Dominique de Villepin est un homme seul”, Gaétan Supertino, L’Express (12/12/2011)
Contrary to all expectations, he said yes. Dominique de Villepin announced on TF1 on Sunday that he would be a candidate in the presidential election. “He surprised everybody,” as François Hollande summarised this morning on radio RTL. And his decision certainly caused an outcry in the government. Far from being left speechless, UMP officials have been taking it in turns to step into the breach since the announcement to decry the former Prime Minister’s decision.
Nadine Morano, the Minister for Apprenticeship and the UMP’s election manager, was one of the most virulent. “Dominique de Villepin is just one man, with no financial backing, no political movement... It is in the general interest of France to stand united behind the President of the Republic,” she declared as early as Sunday evening. “He had the bad idea of the 1997 dissolution [of the National Assembly]. I would prefer him not to make the mistake of division in 2012,” she said. “I would like him to take some more time to think it over and then to rally behind Nicolas Sarkozy,” Nadine Morano went on, referring to a “posturing candidacy”. For Marie-Anne Montchamp, Dominique de Villepin’s former spokeswoman who is now a member of the government, his candidacy is all about “testifying [...] I personally find it regrettable because it seems to me that now is not the best moment for this kind of candidacy.”
“The risk of an inverted 21st April is real”
More diplomatically, shortly before the announcement of his candidacy, Xavier Bertrand, the Minister for Employment and Health, asked “Dominique de Villepin to join us as soon as possible, because we are having a difficult time.”
Valérie Rosso-Debord, the députée for Meurthe-et-Moselle and the assistant deputy leader of the UMP, found Dominique de Villepin’s decision “regrettable.” She warned that “only the broadest union of the forces, the ideas and the beliefs of the right and the centre will allow us to be able to win the 2012 campaign. The risk of an inverted 21st April is real and we appeal to all our sympathisers to gather and join forces against the left and the FN”.
Jacques Le Guen, député for Finistère, even described this candidacy as a “political mistake” in the newspaper Ouest-France, explaining that Villepin was “undermining his ability to unify the French people.”
“We will see if his convictions hold up under the pressure.”
Supporters of the former Prime Minister were obviously delighted by the announcement. “Dominique de Villepin’s strong, free voice could no longer be absent from the presidential debate. His vision, his experience and his courage will carry forward a political project that’s ambitious despite the crisis, socially fair to the French and modern enough to reform the nation radically.” commented the UMP député Jean-Pierre Grand, the president of the République Solidaire party founded by Dominique de Villepin. “Our fellow citizens need to know the proposals Dominique de Villepin has for France and for the French, then they will decide. This is democracy, this is the Republic,” he went on.
“This is bad news for Sarkozy.”
Among socialists, however, this candidacy is looked on rather favourably. “This is bad news for Sarkozy,” confirmed André Vallini, the socialist senator on the i-Télé TV channel. Jean-Louis Borloo, on the other hand, sees it as “very bad news” for François Bayrou, the presidential candidate of the MoDem, “not for Nicolas Sarkozy.” “Dominique de Villepin’s strategy consists in basically saying: ‘I'm better [than what’s on offer], I'm ready to step in if there is an extremely serious crisis. But I’ll let (François) Bayrou occupy the middle ground of people who are by nature neither completely socialist nor completely Sarkozist,” said the president of the Parti Radical, who himself decided in October not to stand as a candidate in the presidential election.
“He has a particular vision of the role of France in the world which is different from Nicolas Sarkozy’s. The French still remember his 2003 speech at the United Nations,” commented Manuel Valls, François Hollande’s head of communications, this morning on radio Europe 1. As for the PS candidate himself, he saluted “a man of conviction,” before concluding: “We’ll see if his convictions hold up under the pressure. We’ll see if he sees it through.”
Translation: Jérémy Delhaye and Antoine Gervais
Editing: Sam Trainor