Christine Boutin, leader of the Christian Democratic Party (PCD) on October 21, 2009 in Ballan-Miré (Indre-et-Loire).
The candidate for the presidential elections says she is satisfied with the President’s policy commitments, but thinks “there’s still a lot to do”.
Photo: Alain Jocard, AFP
Article Source: “Pour Boutin, les propositions de Sarkozy vont «dans le bon sens»”, AFP, Libération (10/02/2012)
Last Friday presidential candidate Christine Boutin announced that she welcomed the “initial commitments made by Nicolas Sarkozy” in an interview he gave to the Figaro Magazine, though she thought that “there [was] still a lot to do.”
“Bringing ‘new ideas’ to the French people, reasserting the value of work, holding more referendums, preserving the traditional family, refusing gay marriage and civil partnerships, rejecting euthanasia, reaffirming France’s Judeo-Christian roots: this is definitely a step in the right direction,” explained Sarkozy’s former minister of Housing (from 2007 to 2009).
“But there’s still a lot to do,” she added, especially about “schooling” and about “the respect for life (...) at its very beginning.” “I am calling for a genuine policy of support for pregnant women in difficulty,” announces one of her communiqués, alluding to abortion – something she has consistently opposed.
Christine Boutin has had great difficulty obtaining the 500 signatures of elected officials required to run for president. She decided to put her name to the complaint brought before the Constitutional Council by Marine Le Pen, which challenged the requirement to disclose these sponsors’ names.
Having already been a candidate for the presidency in 2002 (receiving 1.19% votes), Christine Boutin abandoned her campaign in 2007, saying that she was “taking into account the risk of turning these elections into a reverse April 2002,” meaning the main right-wing candidate risked being eliminated by the FN candidate in the first round of the elections. The leader of the Parti chrétien-démocrate has repeatedly said that she might withdraw her candidacy in 2012 if Marine Le Pen became too great a threat for the head of state.*
In late September 2011, in an interview given to the news website Rue89, she also indicated that in 2007, she had withdrawn her candidacy after Nicolas Sarkozy promised that “no law in favour of euthanasia or gay marriage would be passed” during his term of office.
* Christine Boutin withdrew her candidacy in support of Nicolas Sarkozy on 13th February 2012. This article, written three days earlier, appears to have been published in the knowledge that she was about to quit the race. It is possible it marked a period of negotiation between the PCD and the UMP, and that Boutin’s announcements were an invitation to Sarkozy to move a little closer to her socially conservative policies to secure her support. (Editor’s note.)
Translation: Clémentine Rayer and Juliette Rosard
Editing: Sam Trainor